User reviews

Based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Harr, 'A Civil Action', directed neatly by Steven Zaillian, is A Gripping Film, that brings a true-story on celluloid, efficiently. The Writing, at most places, is sharp, and the performances by Travolta and Duvall, are hugely effective.

'A Civil Action' is based on a true story of a court case about environmental pollution that took place in Woburn, Massachusetts in the 1970s.

It was a tragic time, for the people who lost their loved ones. And the cinematic version pays respect to them. The Court Scenes are sharply written and executed, while some scenes, especially towards the end, lose pace.

Steven Zaillian's Adpated Screenplay is mostly intense and gripping. His direction, is neat as well. Cinematography by Conrad L. Hall is picture perfect. Editing is fair.

Performance-Wise: Travolta and Duvall, both own the film. Travolta is flawless as the righteous attorney, while Duvall is powerful and menacing. Among other performances, William H. Macy and James Gandolfini stand on their own with note-worthy performances. John Lithgow is perfect, as ever.

On the whole, A Must See Film!

John Travolta gives a pretty good performance here in Steve Zaillan's (scripter of Schindler's List) Civil Action as a hot shot lawyer who gets a case of people in a small town poisoned by the local water. Then the lawsuit begins, though we learn more here than any Grisham film. A film about being humane and trying to do the right thing over money. The entire supporting cast is a big boost, including Robert Duvall as the opposing attorney, William H. Macy, Tony Shalhoub as Travolta's attorney's, Kathleen Quinlann who is the heart of the movie and James Gandolfini as a resident. A

Courtroom drama is a robust dramatic formula; there is human conflict, suspense and, in the verdict, resolution. In the real world court cases don't run to the formula; many cases are stillborn, many are settled before trial, some seemingly decisive victories are reversed on appeal. The lawyers generally seem to survive though. In the American system of civil litigation the contingent fee is common - the lawyer gets paid only if the client succeeds, usually a third of the verdict or settlement amount. This can lead to some pretty crass conduct.

In this film, based on a very fine book about real events in the Boston area, we have a rather rare example of a lawyer trying so hard he defeats his own cause. Yet at the end he may have brought about a greater social good. Jan Schlictman (played with smarmy aplomb by John Travolta) is a seasoned plaintiff's lawyer in personal injury cases who knows all the tricks, both in pre-trial negotiation and before a jury. He is persuaded by an associate to look into a claim by a small community that its water has been poisoned by industrial waste resulting in the deaths of at least eight children from leukemia and other ailments. The case captures his attention and before long the entire resources of his four-partner firm are concentrated on it. They are up against a local tannery owner and two huge corporations, Beatrice and W&R Grace. Beatrice is represented by Faucher (a stand-out performance from Robert Duvall) a crusty veteran of 45 years litigation (and Harvard Law School lecturer), and he doesn't have much trouble cutting Jan down to size.

Despite the escalating cost Jan doesn't seem to know when to stop. His partner James (another gem-like performance from William H Macy) does everything he can to raise money, including applying for credit cards from banks as far away as Fargo, North Dakota (those who saw Macy in "Fargo" will chuckle over that one.) Total disaster is averted but it seems that Jan has been fighting the wrong battle.

To fit the mood the lighting is dull (surely the Boston Courts are not quite as gloomy as portrayed) and the weather awful. I've never seen it rain so much in a movie. Against this dismal backdrop the performances are luminous. Apart from those already mentioned there is John Lithgow (of "Third Rock from the Sun" fame) as a conceited judge, Kathleen Quinlan as a bereaved parent, Bruce Norris as Cheeseman, Grace's super nerd lawyer, Dan Hedaya as O'Reilly the evil tannery owner and Stephen Fry as a very English geologist. And who should pop up at the end as a bankruptcy judge but Kathy Bates.

This is a case where I have read the book (by Jonathan Harr) and for the movie the film makers have rather sidelined the plaintiff/victims and focused more on Jan's manic prosecution of the case. This helps the drama but does give the impression that the plaintiffs were helpless bystanders. This was not so, as the book shows.

As a movie this one succeeds very well. Some have complained it's a bit slow and requires rather too much legal knowledge from ordinary filmgoers but there is plenty of tension and the ending is as satisfactory as one gets in real life. It's a movie to make a lawyer cringe, and that is probably recommendation enough.

Starting the film as the traditional stereotypical lowlife lawyer, John Travolta is actually superb as his character develops into someone who actually cares about his clients, and about people other than himself.

Robert Duvall is excellent as his opposing counsel, and his character's interplay in the courtroom drama with Travolta is worth seeing the film for alone. Duvall plays quirky characters like few else in modern cinema.

Given the job of prosecuting a tannery over water pollution that has led to the death of many children, this is well written and structured - as well as being brilliantly acted and well directed.

The one complaint I would have is that this petered out a little in the finish, which was perhaps inevitable as it's a true story, and sometimes the climax of real life isn't as good as in fiction.

John Travolta gives a dandy performance as a cocky Boston personal injury lawyer who heads up a small but burgeoning firm, almost passing up on headline-making case of a major food company subsidiary found to be dumping toxic chemicals into the water supply of a small-town Massachusettes town, causing many of the children there to get sick or die. Neatly directed and scripted film from Jonathan Harr's factual book allows for both legal statistics and some dry legal humor, and avoids exploiting an emotionally-wrenching theme (the death of children) for hug-tugging sentiment. The film is direct and compact, pausing only occasionally for a dramatic character turn, and is handsomely-made if not terrifically entertaining. Travolta and nemesis lawyer Robert Duvall (smiling like the Cheshire Cat) are wonderful to watch sparring with one another, and the specifics of the case are intriguing. **1/2 from ****

Personal injury lawyers are often thought of as ambulance chasers for good reason - they take cases based on the wealth of the opponent and their ability to avoid getting the case thrown out rather than on its legitimate legal merits, and Travolta's character is very successful at this. His credo is that any lawyer who goes to court has failed, since his job is to settle OUT of court. The first half hour of the film sets up this world of nuisance litigation with a series of brilliant speeches that have the viewer off-center from the usual idealistic young lawyer trying to right wrongs nonsense so prevalent in legal dramas and so missing here. Yet, slowly we watch successful attorney Jan Schlichtmann (Travolta), as he pursues a big company accused of dumping chemicals, slowly evolve INTO the kind of legal crusader we have seen so often seen before, and this way some otherwise familiar courtroom drama takes on a fresh edge and provides greater interest that it otherwise might. And since the drama is based on a true story, it takes some surprising turns especially toward the end, as life often does and Hollywood does less often. An excellent script achievement and a very good resulting film.

I'm usually put off by courtroom films simply because I associate them with either the tendency for pompous and ornate speech-making a la "A Few Good Men," or cheap audience-manipulation a la "Primal Fear." Yes, they are entertaining, usually with great actors and fine performances - thinking man's thrillers. But generally they remain nothing more than that - a well-done conversation piece.

"A Civil Action" was a pleasant surprise because it is not only like neither of those films, but also because it is a good film starring John Travolta. While he had his moments in the spotlight for good reason (think: "Pulp Fiction") his movies are generally not that great. But that's just a personal opinion and I may be wrong.

Still, "A Civil Action" is a great courtroom film. For one, it's a true story (which doesn't necessarily say much), and it is told with restraint, quietness and respect for the characters involved (which should be saying a lot). It takes the best from "Silkwood" and "Verdict" and it gives us people who are real and who engage in battle the way we imagine real people would. They don't have dramatic moments in the courtroom upon which an unreal stillness descends so as to be shattered at the end of the speech by the thunderous sound of unanimous, emotionally-fraught clapping.

John Travolta is great here and so is the rest of the cast, among them William H. Macy, Kathleen Quinlan, Sydney Pollack, John Lithgow, Stephen Fry (in a small cameo role), Kathy Bates (in an even smaller cameo role) and the great Robert Duvall. In the end, it is Duvall who steals the show in his quiet, unemotional musings, advice-givings and deliberations with Travolta. He embodies the restraint for which the film strives.

"A Civil Action" is quiet in its proceedings and, consequently real. It tells the story of a lawyer who reluctantly accepts a case having to do with the contamination of water and the deaths of many children in a small town and becomes obsessed with it to the point of going bankrupt. His obsession mirrors the self-destructiveness of Paul Newman's lawyer in "Verdict," and it has real results. His adversaries are not evil people, per se (think Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men"), but people who are simply doing their jobs damn well, defending their interests. We shouldn't expect them to cave in to pretty speech-making, nor should the jury.

And watching "A Civil Action" we don't and it doesn't. The personalities clash, personal tragedy is pitted against financial burdens of the legal process, and it yields startling conclusions about the American Justice system. And that is what "A Civil Action" chooses to focus on more so than the true story it tells (though it doesn't ignore it either). The film shows the price of justice and how justice is understood in the legal process. In fact, it draws a very fine dichotomy between non-legal justice and legal justice and shows how hard it is to get "justice" in a legal setting. Needless to say, it becomes a very expensive ordeal full of re-interpretations of the law and annoying manipulations of it. What we can gather from the story, however, is that we should be grateful for people who are willing to go to extreme lengths, at great personal cost, to define justice on their own terms and to fight for it.

As far as courtroom dramas go, this is by no means great. I've seen plenty of them, as American law system interests me. The greatest would arguably be A Few Good Men... this is pretty much in the order end of the spectrum, being a fairly slight courtroom drama. It has just enough good points to it to keep it above average, but only *just* enough. I think the way the story was told was fairly standard, but good anyway. I liked Travolta's voice-overs, and liked the fact that it's not the typical cliché-like ending, where, against all odds, the case is won. I won't tell you exactly how it ends, but the ending is pretty good, and not as predictable as many of the courtroom dramas are. The plot is good, and develops, at least in the beginning, pretty good, and with a good pace. However, somewhere in the last half, the pace drops and you find yourself being bored with the film. Too bad, since it started out so promising. The acting is very good; Duvall and Travolta are obviously good, but Macy and Lithgow were surprisingly good(not that they're typically bad, though). The supporting cast also do their jobs well. The characters are well-written, credible, and well-casted. The humor, though rare in the film, is mostly good. All in all, a pretty good courtroom drama, based on a true story, and a basic story of inexperienced against experienced, as they say in the featurette on the DVD. I recommend it to fans of courtroom dramas, and fans of any of the actors. 7/10

Based on a amalgam of true stories, this film is slick, but empty in its understanding of truth as it relates to its characters. Some terrific actors (Lithgow, Shalhoub, etc.) get to waste their talents portraying one-dimensional sleazebags. Travolta is fine in detailing the obsession the lawyer he portrays deals with in trying to do the right thing. Kathleen Quinlan has a terrific high-impact turn in a supporting role.

But, A Civil Action is never truly credible because it relies on well-trod and untrue-ringing plot contrivances instead of thoughtfully exploring the real underlying issues. Many friends compared this to Julia Roberts's Erin Brockovich. Unfortunately, this is a lot closer to the equally conspiritor-obsessed mess known as The Pelican Brief. Overall, I found a Civil Action to be extremely disappointing.

On my first viewing of this, on VHS, I thought it okay but nothing special. I caught a break, being able to obtain the DVD for almost no cost, so I looked at it again. Wow, am I glad. I loved it the second time.

The DVD brings out the cinematography which is very, very good and the picture is razor-sharp. One of Hollywood''s Hall Of Fame photographers, Conrad Hall, shot this film. Story-wise, the courtroom scenes were the most dramatic of the film but this story dealt more with the behind-the-scenes digging of information to expose thoughtless businessmen who had dumped poison in an area and people were suffering because of it. It is supposedly-based on a true story.

Another big highlight of this movie is great performance by John Travolta, perhaps his best work ever. Just the pauses and looks on his face alone greatly enhanced his performance. He was just fascinating. Language-wise, this is pretty tame except for William H. Macy, who loses his cool a few times as the assistant lawyer/financial man for the law firm battling the polluters.

It's easy to get involved with the story, but don't overlook the great photography in here.

Jan Schlichtmann (John Travolta) is a tenacious unsentimental personal injury lawyer. Anne Anderson (Kathleen Quinlan) embarrasses him to take her case seriously on the radio. There has been 12 deaths over 15 years from leukemia and 8 of them are children in the small town of Woburn. It's an environmental case of bad water and nobody thinks it can be a profitable case. Jan is forced to go to Woburn to drop the case himself. There is a tannery on the river and Jan notices that it's owned by the massive Beatrice Foods. He and his firm Kevin Conway (Tony Shalhoub), James Gordon (William H. Macy), and Bill Crowley (Zeljko Ivanek) file the complaint against the deep pocketed conglomerate. Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall) is the esteemed defense lawyer for the bigger company. Skinner (John Lithgow) is the presiding judge. Al Love (James Gandolfini) may have witnessed some dumping at the plant. Pinder (Stephen Fry) investigates the environment for Jan. The case rests on a knife's edge as money problems mount for Jan and his partners.

This is a courtroom drama with some pretty good acting. Travolta does a good job as a smart greedy lawyer. The character is not somebody that is naturally likable although he is the rooting interest. The movie has many great actors doing good supporting roles. The legal drama has the problem that neither side is really concerned about the truth. It's a mystery without a Sherlock. This is mostly a movie of he says, he says. The legal proceedings doesn't have quite that drive. It's a fine court case with 'realistic' cynical lawyers. I'm not necessarily asking for the movie to Hollywood it up. However the movie could start with a young Jan standing up to bullies in defense of somebody weaker. It would show that he had it in him all along, and it would be compelling to see the case reawaken that part of his psyche. I just think the movie sold his cynicism a little too hard. I rather have his cynicism as a hard outer shell for his soft inner real self.

This film took a very dramatic story (this is easy to see just from the actual plot points) and told it with about as much emotion as pathos as a dramatization for "Hard Copy." The script chose all the wrong points of the story to focus on, managing to actually bore us through the telling of a very compelling story. The movie also completely wasted the talents of some great actors, like William Macy, who did the best he could to make his one-note character actually have some dimension, and Tony Shalhoub, who is, for most of the movie, only used as set dressing. Even still, I would have liked the movie more had someone not made the worst choice of closing credit music in film history! Whoever made the unthinkable decision to play the Talking Heads' "Take Me to the River" after a true story about children dying from poisoned river water should be kicked out of the entertainment industry forever. Not only is the upbeat song completely the wrong tone for the somber movie, but the content of the song, about being taken to the river and dunked in the water, makes the choice completely callous, rude, and downright obscene. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the parents of those children sued the filmmakers for emotional distress. What a stupid, stupid move.

How to interpret viewer comments on this film:

"Slow-moving" = ...no car chases.

"poor acting" = ...no karate chops

"too long" = ...longer than a music video

"dull" = ...See "Slow-moving"

"A Civil Action" was a fine book, and the film does it justice. No, it's not perfect, but it is emotionally moving, and faithful to the non-fiction account of the case.

Some of the heart-rending short scenes featuring parents of the child-victims (the father at the deposition; the parents trying to revive the dying child in the car) were absolute masterpieces. There should be special Academy Awards available for brief scenes of this kind that are too "small" for Best Supporting Actor awards, but are, in themselves, worthy of acclaim.

Jan Schlichtmann, a personal injury attorney with little to no scruples finds himself in a case where children have died of leukemia based on possible environmental waste issues. A case in which may cost him not only career but everything.

A fine court room drama based on real life issues. The acting is what truly makes this film a dramatic and gripping. Travolta does a exceedingly wonderful job portraying Jan Schlichtmann, as well as the all star ensemble cast in this film. The pacing though may be slow for some is filled with pure characterization and all is eventual in the building of this methodical plot. Not just for judicial court room drama enthusiasts but fans of human films with heart. Though some reflect that this film is unrealistic in its presentation of all the facts but for the sake of entertainment and the pacing of the film. The overall mood of this film is somber and delicate but ultimately this films true great points are in its characterization its story and its gripping dramatic heart. I highly recommend this film to any fans of pure cinematic drama and true story enthusiasts, one in which has its morals deeply rooted within the film.

If you go into this expecting an exciting, edge of your seat legal thriller type of movie you;re going to be disappointed. I watched this twice. The first time because from what had been described, that's what I was expecting - and I was disappointed. But I decided to give it another chance, reflecting more on the moral of the story and the characters. Using this lens, I wasn't disappointed.

John Travolta put on a pretty good performance as Jan Schlictmann, a personal injury lawyer who, although unenthused at first, takes on a case involving environmental contamination that has caused several children in Massachussetts to die of leukemia. Basically, he takes it on because he discovers that there are two huge corporations he could get money from, and that's one moral of the story: personal injury law is less about the victims who've been hurt and more about the money that can be made. IN fact, the very opening of the movie establishes that well, as Schlictmann (in a narration by Travolta) describes who the preferred victims are, based on how much money you can expect to make off them, and children are at the bottom of the list. Schlictmann belongs to a small but pretty successful law firm that doesn't accept cases unless they know they can win, since that's the only way they get paid. The whole point of this type of practice, we're told, is to avoid trials and get big settlements. His colleagues doubt the wisdom of accepting this case but go along with it, until Schlictmann loses his "perspective" in two way: he actually starts to care about the victims, declining large settlements because they're not enough, and, faced with a degree of contempt from the big law firms he's going up against, he decides he has to prove himself. The result is disaster. The firm and all the partners go broke, even after a settlement is made, because what they get doesn't come close to covering their costs, and the families are disappointed because they didn't really care about money - they wanted an apology and a clean-up.

Although not especially exciting, the movie is well-paced and interesting, and includes a solid supporting cast, including folks like Robert Duvall, William H. Macy and Tony Shalhoub. I found the end a bit anti-climactic. Hard to believe you could feel sympathy for an ambulance chaser, but by the time the movie ends, I really wanted Schlictmann to win. Instead, he ends up totally destitute - telling a bankruptcy judge that he's left with $14 and a portable radio. He wants to continue the case but doesn't have the resources, so he turns everything over to the EPA. They do take the case on - and win - but Schlictmann is long gone by the time that happens.

Since this was a true story, it was nice to see the companies forced to pay up, and somewhat uplifting to learn that Schlictmann switched from personal injury law to environmental law. And, as much as I wanted him to succeed in this case in the end, it is a true story, so the end was what it was. A pretty good movie all in all. 7/10

The cast is solid with stars like William Macy , James Gandolfini , Tony Shelhoub , Jon Lithgow and Stephen Fry . Robert Duvall gives a good performance , but I would argue if he deserved Oscar nomination. John Travolta fits the main role quite nicely .

The movie is quite fine directed and written . The problem is with the main hero . He is barely written . We get information in the first minutes of the movie that he is cold and cynical , but we never really get to know what is going in his head . His decision about helping those people seems to come from nowhere . It just happens . It feels like his actions aren't natural , but happen because the writer wishes so. Also , bad song choice for the ending credits.

Trials are for those who want to prove something , mostly to themselves. Civil law is about compromise – to settle and get money . In our everyday life we often compromise , even when we know that we should fight for what we believe in . It's good to do something against logic , so we could look in the mirror and don't be ashamed with what we see there.

I give it 7/10.

Any movie with John Travolta, James Gandolfini, Robert Duvall, and John Lithgow in it has to be good. This was a top-notch legal drama based on a true story with Travolta (in a standout performance) as a lawyer whose firm has to do representation in an environmental case. They handle it brilliantly. It starts off with a monologue presented by Travolta's character about the "worthiness" of clients, shows a case, and proceeds from there. I liked Travolta's role and Lithgow's performance as a judge, as well as everyone else in it and the entire movie in general. This was one of those must-see, feel-good movies that everyone is guaranteed to love.

*** out of ****

The strength of this movie was in its performances. Travolta, I thought was very good and Duvall was excellent. However, the story was nothing special. I found the story kind of trite. The scene with the father telling the story of his son dying in the car was brilliant. In fact, it stands out so much because the rest of the film had very familiar imagery and dialogue. I agree with the reviewer who said "Been there, done that". What made it a little better however were the performances, and I give it a lot of credit for not including the typical courtroom drama scenes (like you'd see in LA Law or The Practice) and concentrating on the characters of the people and lawyers. But the ending is very unsatisfying and SO much of a letdown that, despite some good stuff in the movie, I wouldn't recommend it. I gave it a 4 out of 10.

A wonderful, beautiful book made into an equally good movie. Wonderful acting from Travolta, Macy, Duvall, Lithgow, Gandolfini, and the brilliant Kathleen Quinlan.

Jan Schlichtmann is not a sensible, prudent, or very likable person. He is arrogant, reckless, greedy, ambitious, and brusque. Buried in there is a social conscience, however.

This is a story about how a very flawed person--a real person--does the right thing. In doing so he ruins himself financially and takes a lot of people with him--his partners and friends. He does prevail. Do the injured parents thank him? No. Their grief is still so immense that they cannot be thankful even to these men who have really given them their all.

The scene with James Gandolfini sitting at the table with his wife and eight children is one of my favorites in any movie. He is another person who suddenly realizes that, no matter what it costs him, he has to do what is right.

Although the good guys win it is not an altogether happy story--there are the parents of dead kids and the ruined careers--but it is unforgettable and it is real. At the end, Schlichtmann says he would do it again if he had it to do over. This is what real heroes are like, in the real world. They do not always get thanks and a medal, but they do things for all of us anyway.

A film based on a true story, on combatting industrial waste issues and the impacts upon human health. Before watching, seeing that as the premise it made me wonder why it hadn't made a 7 at least on the imdb scoring. Up to the last half hour or so, I was still a little confused on this point. It caused me to wonder if the narrating segments, which I thought were very well done and written, were in nature unpopular with viewers. And then I got to the last half hour or so...

Ultimately in this film we do not get the story we might expect to see from that premise. And whether because of that or because of other production/directorial decisions that last bit doesn't feel as tight as the former bit. It feels like it looses its footing. To me anyway.

There was, I think a small thread of narrative of something they never teased out or pulled on that if they had done so might have ultimately made the film a little more popular/knocked the rating up a bit. Probably this is authentic to the main character's viewpoint we are following. I hope the real person the main character is based on came to see it at some point. Maybe you'll spot it.

I really enjoyed the way everything was put together in the first section of the movie and the way the story was told (it's not done in a 'gritty' or 'dark' way). And I think it is worth watching because of it. But I do wish they'd managed to frame an ending that to me (possibly it is not so for others) would have rendered a 'better' feeling when leaving the film (whilst I don't think it would be a spoiler to explain how that would be so, I will avoid doing so anyway, just in case).

Despite a great cast in a movie based on true events, I found it to be far too drawn-out and far too slow. This could have been so much stronger, but alas, it was not.