Review: A Civil Action (1998)

I like John Travolta. There's the connection I feel from my teenage years when he was Vinnie Barbarino, my friends and me cracking up in the high school cafeteria with the line, "Up your nose with a rubber hose." I grew up in New Jersey, and Travolta has Jersey connections (listen to his deceptive hard r's sometime, similar to Danny DeVito's). The man is just cool, hair swept back, face ready to look threatening or comedic.

The trouble is, he gets way too much screen time in 'A Civil Action.' Travolta's Jan Schlichtmann is a personal injury lawyer with two partners - Kevin Conway (Tony Shalhoub) and Bill Crowley (Zelijko Ivanek) - and an accountant, James Gordon (William H. Macy). Among these players, only Macy is doled out a decent number of lines by the script. Gordon has the job of locating finances for the case in which the firm is involved, and Macy does a fine job of complaining to the lead partner, Schlichtmann, about impending bankruptcy. In a scene in which Gordon confronts Schlichtmann during a thunderstorm, their law office dark and bare because of all the repossessions, we see Macy show a darn good stint of anger. His style is not physically threatening, but for a suit-wearing numbers-cruncher, he appears memorably agitated. Shalhoub and Ivanek, two strong actors, go along for the ride. What's weak here is that the film becomes as much about the lessons learned by one lawyer as about a legal case brought by parents of children who died of leukemia.

The town is Woburn (Woo-burn), Massachusetts, and the parents of the deceased children are not sure whom they should hold responsible. The most visible parent is Anne Anderson, played by Kathleen Quinlan. She embarrasses Schlichtmann as he talks on his legal radio show, the result being his visit to the town in order to drop the case politely. But on his drive back to the city he is stopped for a second speeding ticket; before he climbs back in his Porsche, Schlichtmann notices signs of pollution in the river. He investigates, catching his expensive shoes in the muck, but also spotting the tell-tale foam along the bank. After he eyes operations run by W. R. Grace and Beatrice, he decides this could be a money-maker. His firm commences to depose witnesses and hires a drilling firm to probe the aquifer for pollutants.

I've said already that I'm a Travolta fan, but the best actor in the thing is Robert Duvall. This guy is such a pro that he exudes character in the idiosyncrasies of his dress. While Jan Schlichtmann dons impeccable suits and silk ties done up in thin knots, Duvall's opposing lawyer Jerome Facher leaves his collar button unfastened, the neck pieces of his tie slightly visible. Facher, the legal eagle whose firm speaks for Beatrice Foods, is fastidious in his personal habits, and even more careful in his legal machinations. He may look like an old fogey who worships the Red Sox and revels at receiving free pens, but he is sly like Inspector Columbo, saving his canniness for when it counts. In a sequence of masterful intercutting, we watch Facher lecturing to his Harvard law students about maneuvers to avoid in court; while he warns against them, we witness Jan Schlichtmann committing the self-same mistakes! It's a relief that Duvall does not engage in his folksy chuckle in this role; I was beginning to believe he was overusing it. Robert Duvall is one of the very best living actors, and there's never any talk of his recovering from a career slump.

The story develops into an expose of the legal system, and that's fine, except that it feels like we should see more of the victims, the children who contracted cancers or at least their families. The glimpses we catch of Mrs. Anderson are brief. She sits in the back of the courtroom on the left-hand side. In a rare scene that brings us close to any of the children, Anne Anderson explains that if she and her son were ever separated in stores, their plan was to meet in the back on the left side. And he would meet his mother in the back, left-hand side of Heaven. I suppose the film is to be admired for not taking advantage of the tears that could be jerked; at least the tone is not sentimental. Still, we could stand more of the folks who ostensibly hired the firm of Schlichtmann, Conway and Crowley. Perhaps Kathleen Quinlan more opportunity to interact with the lawyers, the Judge Skinner (John Lithgow), somebody. Her role is merely functional, except toward the end when she expresses profound disappointment that she never got what she wanted, a meaningful apology.

The sets are appropriately decorated, especially the law offices and meeting rooms, their shelves lined in calfskin volumes, their heavy doors stained dark. Some nice business turns up concerning the house that holds Schlichtmann's office. It's almost a running joke when workmen remove more furnishings, and later Gordon gets up from the floor where he desk used to be, and launches his tirade at Schlichtmann, who has the habit of refusing offers of millions without consulting his cohorts. There are also some nice shots to establish the gravity surrounding courtrooms. Tall corridors lined in marble, the camera panning around the statue of a man wielding a sickle. (But maybe I remember these scenes because I saw them ten times over the last months, the slick trailer incorporating far too much of the story - but what trailer nowadays does not?)

Jonathan Harr's non-fiction best seller 'A Civil Action' sold 1.5 million copies. So the film has a solid base from which to spring. The film born of the book is realistic in its jaundiced view of the justice system, as well as in its tracing of a lawyer's financial fall. I should add that the picture does not end where it might, but continues to follow Schlichtmann's free fall. It's a decision that adds another dimension to the story, suggesting that his moral character has improved, even after facing the aftermath of a disastrous case.

Unfortunately, 'A Civil Action' increases the number of stories in which underdogs battle vast corporations. For the most part we see only lawyers representing Grace and Beatrice. But the film contains enough glittering pinpoints of originality, and above-average acting, to recommend it. If only it were not so much about John Travolta.