John Grisham is an acquired taste. Many in the film industry do not like his books and especially don't like the clichéd way the stories develop. Fans of his books, however, want the exact same excellence, in the film.
So it goes with The Rainmaker. If you didn't like the book, odds are you enjoyed the movie, if you never read the book, odds are you found it a refreshing underrated film, if you were a huge fan of the book, seeing a condensed version of it, put you off severely.
As a rule, I avoid reading a book before seeing a movie based on it. They are two separate things. If one can separate the book from a movie that went over the usual 120 minute formula as it was, you can see this film for what it is, refreshing, unique, and hardly as clichéd as any other lawyer story or movie.
What makes this one tick so well? Fleshed out characters other than the lead, different levels of supporting characters, some that help hold up the story, some that help hold up the main character, and some that could be considered incidental. Then there is the lack of court clichés. There is no rambling speech, not by the main character, the "evil" opponent, or the judge. No speech. Perhaps because the seamless narration of the story provides a nice subtle speech throughout the film. Everytime the story seems on the edge of the predictable court drama twist, it surprises.
Our hero, Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon), has absolutely no idea what he is doing. He chose the law because he idolized the civil rights lawyers who stood up for what was right. A shame that isn't the law he is pursuing. Instead, he is the part of the law lampooned the most, ambulance chasers, suing someone for a bloody nose, a broken arm, hot coffee spilled on one's legs ... you get the drift. Rudy loves the law. It is apparent from the beginning of the film, the law does not love Rudy. His main case, a leukemia patient who did not get a bone marrow transplant because his insurance company, Great Benefits, had the gall to deny his claim eight times, call the patient's mother "stupid, stupid, stupid", and call the treatment, "an experimental procedure" in open court. As a result, the patient eventually dies and Rudy, the lone lawyer in his firm, takes on Leo F. Drummond (Jon Voight) and his band of merry stuffed shirts for the insurance company. Rudy is outgunned and he knows it. His partner in his firm, Deck Schifflet (Danny DeVito), knowledgeable about the law, but has failed the bar five times and has just as much court experience as Rudy ... zero. Rudy also gets distracted with an abused young wife named Kelly Riker (Claire Danes). His attraction to the girl and how her abused past mirrors that of his mother and himself, reveals little insights into Rudy that we will not see in the courtroom.
It is the realness of Rudy and Deck, their imperfections, the fact that they are obviously fallible, that makes the movie so refreshing. Drummond too is an enigma; He is merely the lawyer, not a member of the company. There is no specific reason to hate him, he is good at what he does, he overpowers Rudy mainly based on the law and experience, not on money and power. It is never even clear where Drummond's false sincerity begins and ends in his dealing with Rudy. By making Drummond the opponent, it gives the viewers a rare treat. Drummond is doing his job, he is doing it well, and is a rarity in court films, a worthy opponent, who could realistically, crush our hero like a bug. Kelly also has more than one dimension. Being abused does not make her whiny, co-dependant, and unable to think on her own two feet, and make crucial decisions. She is a rarity as the damsel in distress, when it really counts, she is as strong as her hero.
Then it goes without saying the acting is also done in a subtle and successful manner. DeVito especially is superb with his delicate balance of humor as the ambulance chasing Deck. In the middle of an important deposition, Coppola's script relieves the tension by showing us Deck preying on a boy with a broken arm for his business. DeVito may be best known for his over the top character in Taxi, an obvious little troll with few redeeming qualities. Contrast Deck, also a troll with few redeeming qualities, but with great subtleness, it is those qualities that shine through and Deck is anything but over the top. It shows DeVito's amazing skill and control and should have earned him an Oscar nomination. Voight, plays once again, the villain, but unlike his pandering and embarrassing role in Anaconda, with a hear through accent, and little effort, as Drummond, he becomes the role. You forget the actor is not really a southern little worm. Danes, also does a strong job. But it is the actors in the smaller, more thankless roles, like Mary Kay Place, as the victim's mother, Mickey Rourke, as Deck and Rudy's former sleazy employer, and especially an uncredited Danny Glover, as the judge, who bring color and extra depth to characters that could have easily been cookie cutter clichés when Coppola found the need to par down the book's plot.
Coppola took a rare, unique, and stylish gem by Grisham, one so different from his other books it was either deemed an overwhelming success or failure, in comparison to his other work, and did a good job trimming the fat, without trimming the dimensions of the book's most crucial characters. He takes out what won't work with his vision, without taking out who the characters are.
Something about this movie just works in all the necessary places. While it is not a movie of the year, it is a solid film. All films have perceived imperfections by the viewers and critics, and this one is no exception. It, however, does not have major missteps in any important part of the film. The acting is practically flawless, the direction is practically flawless, and the writing, is amazingly, for a court film, incredibly absent of major flaws.
It is certainly worth the less than four dollars it would take to judge for yourself.
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