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Popcorn Reviews
With Cybèle: A Civil Action
By Cybèle Elaine Werts
CybeleW@aol.com
First published
in the Shelburne News, Shelburne Vermont
Popcorn Kernel Rating (four possible): 3
Kernels for real life drama that isn’t as neatly tied up as
one might hope.
Let’s say you were a legal thriller fan and
you go to all the big John Grisham movies. You might have
expectations of a zippy plot and showy ending. But then let’s
say this movie, A Civil Action, was based on a non-fiction book
which won the National Book Award, and which while gripping,
kind of goes on and on and gets a little lost in the quicksand
sometimes (kind of like this sentence). The story is of Jan
Schlichtmann (John Travolta), a sometime hotshot lawyer and
ambulance chaser who finds his heart and loses his fortune by
the end of this trial. The bottom line then is that legal
maneuverings are what makes the American Justice System happen,
and Jan is the perfect narrator of this sad, cynical universe.
Unlike what you might expect, this story is about the law and
lawyers, kind of like in Ally Mcbeal or The Practice. It’s not
about the victims or the story, which don’t have a lot of
punch when it comes to movie plots or winning trials.
Jan is played by John Travolta with great
flair, whose facial gestures and little odd movements are a good
counterpoint to Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall) who plays one of
the opposing lawyers, and displays Columbo type distractions
with an underlying intelligence that is unmistakable. Unlike
Perry Mason in which the protagonist get the bad guys via a big
coup at the end of the trial, Jan is more in the position of
having the tables turned on him as he struggles to fight the
usual team of big corporation suits and big corporation monies.
He may start out to get financial retribution for a bunch of
families in a small Massachusetts town whose children died due
to chemicals slipping by-and-by into their drinking water. But
he ends up mortgaging his life and that of his colleagues for
justice. A good story, even if a tad long, but then life does
tend to go on that way.
Suggested Gustatory Accompaniment: A glass of
bottled water.
Copyright 2000
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