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Review: 'Rainmaker' cast outshines lackluster plot
December 10, 1997
Web posted at: 5:01 p.m. EST (2201 GMT) From Reviewer Paul Tatara(CNN) -- I have to be honest. If there were never another John Grisham movie made in my lifetime, I would simply aim my attention at something that holds more interest for me, like wood-burning or decoupage. I've never figured out why so many people are so vastly impressed with seeing "mean" lawyers get out-dueled by "nice" lawyers.
First of all, the categories are misleading; it's like making a distinction between rabid Rottweilers and rabid Chihuahuas. Outside of that, though, I often have trouble uncovering the inherent drama in Grisham's stories. Guys in great suits flinging writs at each other and trotting out surprise witnesses, while spectators get bug-eyed and go "harrumph-harrumph" never do, and never will, float my boat.
"The Rainmaker"
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QuickTime movieSo imagine my surprise to find that I enjoyed a whole lot of "The Rainmaker," Francis Ford Coppola's messy-but-likable adaptation of Grisham's 273rd consecutive novel featuring a boyish lawyer putting his foot down and defeating mannish lawyers, thus becoming a mannish boy lawyer.
Don't be expecting the sure-handed direction that guided such masterpieces as "The Godfather" and "The Conversation," however. This is the Coppola who's periodically flat-out-of-money and has to do something, anything, to get his American Zoetrope production company back on its feet.
Characters are believable
Coppola himself has said as much in interviews concerning "The Rainmaker," and his lack of real obsession with the story (the modus operandi behind his greatest films) begins to show like a guilty conscience in the courtroom-bound second half of the movie.
Relative newcomer Matt Damon gives an impressive high-stakes performance as Rudy Baylor, the wet-behind-the-ears lawyer who enters his very first case in Grisham-like fashion, against a powerful insurance company that callously refused to pay for a bone-marrow transplant that could have saved a young leukemia victim's life.
Having grown up in Alabama (and having spent my share of time in Memphis, where "The Rainmaker" takes place), I'm always extremely leery of non-southern actors putting on a drawl to give their performances a more "authentic" "Hee-Haw" sound. In what could be a first, all of the actors in "The Rainmaker" get the nuances of southern dialect and self-consciously gracious mannerisms down cold.
Even Mickey Rourke, who briefly plays an over-tanned, flamboyantly crooked lawyer named "Bruiser," is casually believable. Considering Rourke's vomitous output since a great performance in "Diner" nearly 20 years ago, this is a miraculous development. Coppola, of course, has always had a gift for wringing finely-tuned characterizations from his cast, so a lot of the credit probably has to go to the Big Guy.
DeVito shines in comic performance
There's also top-notch work from Mary Kay Place, as the mother of the deceased boy; Danny DeVito as Damon's weasely-but-committed law firm partner; Claire Danes as an abused woman who winds up in the arms of Damon's sensitive, caring lawyer; Virginia Madsen as a (surprise!) surprise witness; and John Voight as (a baldly clichéd) smug super-lawyer for the defense. The slightly nutty supporting cast also includes uncredited performances from Danny Glover as a sympathetic judge and Roy Scheider as the evil head of the conniving insurance company. Whew!
Coppola wrote the screenplay himself (with narration by Michael Herr, who was responsible for the voice-overs in "Apocalypse Now"), so it surprises me a little bit that he could create fairly sharp characters for such an impressive cast while having them inhabit an often-inane, unfocused story. For the first half of the film, when Damon is just getting his sea legs as a lawyer, the story has a funky, funny zip to it.
DeVito is hilarious while showing the new kid the ambulance-chaser ropes, and Damon himself loses his innocence in amusing increments, but as we get closer to the trial things start to get way out of hand.
Film bogs down in second half
I think Claire Danes is great. She's got a gangly, deer-like quality about her that immediately makes you want to protect her from interlopers. The scene when Damon first approaches her in the hospital after realizing that her husband has brutally beaten her with an aluminum bat is tender and extremely sweet. (The husband is played by Andrew Shue, who has next-to-no lines. Further proof that Coppola knows how to handle his actors.)
I was far more interested in this relationship than any other in the movie, but Coppola eventually seems to tire of it. Danes disappears for long stretches of the film, and, after winding up in jail for defending herself against her husband, the entire story line is wrapped up in literally one sentence! Coppola, who has three Oscars for Best Screenplay on his mantle, inexplicably fails Sub-Plot Writing 101.
Though there's some fun stuff going on in the courtroom --and the performances remain uniformly fine -- the long second half of the film is too reliant on cute prosecution stunts to be believable.
Besides that, Damon's Rudy isn't just wet-behind-the-ears, he's wet behind his entire body! Some of the stuff that he doesn't know about courtroom procedure (such as asking the judge's permission to approach a witness) can be easily grasped while watching a couple episodes of "Perry Mason," let alone graduating from Memphis State.
At least the final showdown is more interesting than something like "A Few Good Men," in which the main bad guy is goosed into shouting out that he's guilty while on the stand.
Case dismissed.
"The Rainmaker" has one violent showdown between Damon and Shue, as well as the aftermath of Shue's beating the angelic Danes. Some profanity. The fashion-sensitive should be warned that Rourke wears a white belt with his suit. Rated PG-13. 137 minutes.
Related site:
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- The Rainmaker - Official Site
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