Rating: 
Summary: A Poor Drama
Review: Here is a film that slowly and solidly builds to a rather unsatisfying climax and essentially leaves its audience hanging out to dry. The film's denouement is ineptly filmed and edited and leaves the viewer empty with an unemotional response or better yet no response. This is a perfect example of post-romantic Hollywood filmmaking where visuals are not on the screen but are left to the mind's eye.
Rating: 
Summary: Lack's Power!
Review: This film is based on a true story that took place in the New England area in 1981. It could have been so good. But what happened? Steven Zaillian (Oscar Winner for his great adaption of Schindlers List) wrote and directed the film. It stars Schlichtmann (John Travolta) as a lawyer who takes on the case about the numerous deaths reported in the New England area. There deaths have something to do with the towns water. Two parents in particular (Kathleen Quinlan and James Gandolfini) just want a simple "were sorry" from the company that is responsible for the toxic waste in the water supply. Zaillians film runs only around two hours, but the book is over 500 pages. It just is not complete. So much seems to be missing. The film also strays off from the true story found in the book. (William H. Macy and Tony Shalhoub)Travolta's law firm partners take the fall with him after the case goes down hill at their firm. Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall) is the lawyer against Travolta. (Dan Hedaya and Sydney Pollack) round out the rest of the cast. The film which could have been so good, never got onto it's own two feet and was not at all able to generate anything other than question after question. Sadly we never recieve one good response. Or realistic performance. Grade:D-
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant absorbing and yet unsatisfying
Review: John Travolta is Jan Schlichtman, who heads a small but hugely profitable New England law firm powered by a small circle of legal sharks. His team includes Tony Shalhoub and Bill Macy and an endless reservoir of legal agression. Their can-do attitude has rewarded the firm's partners handsomely, and Travolta's charachter expands his tastes fit what they can buy. (He can afford both a Porsche and a seemingly endless stream of speeding tickets). Unknowingly at first, the firm takes as a client the emotionally bereft inhabitants of a rural town suffering a cluster of cancers and leukemia. After a single visit, Jan Schlictman discovers a possible link between the disease, possibly contaminated water and a nearby tannery that provides products for "Beatrice" a multinational consortium that makes....everything. Plunging into the case with the idea of securing a monster settlement from the huge consportium, Schlichtman confronts an overpowering sadness unlike anything he's ever encountered, and one he allows to get the better of him. Soon, hoped-for settlement proposals are turned down, ideals substitute for dollar signs, and the firm racks up horrific bills in its bid to link the Beatrice tannery to the rash of lukemia and death surrounding a small town - there must be a fight.Unfortunately - that's where it bogs down, the fight never comes. Instead, we get to see Travolta become unhinged as his sage (but not quite saintly)legal nemesis (Robert Duval) frames a comment on legal dedication, with Schlichtman as the obvious example. Schlicthman's life had by then devolved into a process for making money and finding things to spend it on. With the profit motive gone, his mind follows. In amove that Schlichtman rails against (but which we never explore fully enough for it to register) the Judge allows the jury to sever Beatrice from the trail, and Schlichtman's duel with Duvall's charachter never reaches the Hollywood stage of "You Can't Handle The Truth!" In the end, Schlictman's fortunes are destroyed, his career and his firm in ruins, and the hard-bargained-for settlement only leaves his clients embittered. No amount of settlement can remotely substitute for what the town's residents have lost, and nothing can mitigate the failure that Schlictman's efforts have produced. In a voice-over, played out as documents and transcripts from the trial are dusted off and trucked out into the light of day (down the beltway where we're supposed to think that they'll be reviewed anew) Schlichtman both confesses failure yet exhorts us to follow his example. Failure, he seems to say, is hardly a reason to shy from the epic effort of battling evil in its many banal forms. Still, while the tragic ends of the film swerve away from Hollywood's "the little guy wins" mentality, it doesn't really leave anything in its wake. By the end of the film, Schlichtman has matured beyond measuring himself by his material profits, but nothing quite fills the gap left by the legal shark who got things rolling at the film's opening.
Rating:
Summary: Hmmm...ok
Review: What made me give the movie such a low rating is the ending. The movie starts strong and continues to be solid and well done, until the end. But the end itself is so-so. Pros: * Of course, this is one of those John Travolta-gets-20-mil movies, so it must be good, right? Well, maybe. John certainly gave a terrific performance in the movie. * The movie is virtually star-studded. It includes such great actors as Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, and most importantly, John Lithgow. I love this guy. After seeing him do an awesome job on 3rd Rock from the Sun, it's nice to see him do something very serious again. He is amazingly convincing as the judge in the movie, and when he angrily screams, acting doesn't get any better. The movie also contains two of my all time favorite supporting actors, Dan Hedaya (Dick, First Wives Club) and James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano). * One of the most exciting things in movies is the trial scenes (just watch A Few Good Men and Primal Fear). The trial scenes in this movie are pretty good. Cons: * At the end, what happened? Instead of writing what happened to the characters we hated, we should've seen it. That ruined the ending. Bottom line: Worth a rent.
Rating:
Summary: A good movie, with great performances and interesting story
Review: A Civil action is a solid movie with some good performances and a story that does not cave into Hollywood's propensity for clichés. I was not expecting a whole lot from this movie, so I was pleasantly surprised. It offers an intriguing story based on real events surrounding the contamination of the water supply in the small, industrial Boston suburb. However, it seems to be at least as much if not more so about the legal process than about the suit itself. Travolta, who plays the prosecuting attorney, Jan Schlichtmann, before the trial was a successful was a not very respected personal injury lawyer (A.K.A. ambulance chaser). During the progression of the story, he narrates advice to the audience as if a he is a law professor. It is this instruction that he himself does not follow and thus leads to trouble for himself and his clients. The movie, in this way, is almost as much about the seemingly illogical logic behind litigation then it is about the individual case it portrays. Travolta does an excellent job as the attorney who feels he constantly has something to prove to the corporate monstrosities of Beatrice and Grace and their Harvard-educated attorneys (Schlichtmann, it turns out, graduated from lowly Northwestern). Robert Duvall plays Jerome Facher, Beatrice's lawyer, as an old wise man who has seen everything and is impossible to ruffle. All he wants is to be left alone to eat his lunch in peace and he is content. William H. Macy plays Schlichtmann's firm's increasingly depressed accountant who is forced to leverage the partner's mortgages and take pile charges onto 20 credit cards in the seemingly hopeless effort to wait out the juggernauts their firm is up against. The DVD is itself very mediocre. It has a 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack, but because this isn't an action film, but more of a human/courtroom drama, there's really not a whole lot here to take advantage of 5.1 channels. The only "special feature" of this DVD is the so-called "Production Featurette" which must be all of 5 minutes long and amounts to more of a glorified trailer than anything else - basically it's just a rehash of scenes from the movie with a couple of really quick takes from Travolta and Macy about the movie. I hope that Touchstone will improve a bit on these featurettes in the future to where they actually contain some significant content.
Rating: 
Summary: LIONS, TIGERS AND BEARS, OH MY!
Review: A taut probing look at lawyers, the law, judges, corporate giants vs the people, its victims. This film depicts sharp crafty hot-shot lawyers interested only in pursuing personal injury suits guaranteed to win huge settlements- finally immersing themselves in a case that may be beyond their ability to win, crushing their confidence and dismantling their ranks and their finances. The case is worthy, the victims deserving of justice, and the battle collossal. John Travolta as the top obsessed lawyer is excellent, and Robert Duvall as a wise, old opponent is superb. A magnificient cast rounds out this drama concerning the illness of adults, deaths of innocent children, and animals because of contaminated drinking water and industrial pollution. Unfolding the massive cover-up and getting this case into the courtroom to be heard is almost impossible, but our hero plods on. Gripping, intense, yet uplifting and redeeming in its concept of the often frustrating saga of " trying to do the right thing." I liked the film. Yes it deviated from the book, but films often take a creative twist. It begins on a "Jerry Maguire-SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!!!" tone, but expands into "A Philadelphia Story" of sorts.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-adapted story with terrific acting
Review: After recently reading Jonathan Harr's book A Civil Action, I eagerly awaited seeing the movie version of this sad and absorbing story. The film version condenses the story and leaves out several interesting portions of the book, but is fine nevertheless. John Travolta is a perfect choice to play Jan Schlichtmann, the egotistical, free-spending attorney who dives headfirst into a damages case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace, who are accused of poisoning the drinking water of Woburn, Massachusetts and causing a leukemia outbreak. William H. Macy, Tony Shalhoub, and Zeljko Ivanek co-star as Schlichtmann's partners in the firm, and one only wishes that they would have protested his actions, which led to the financial ruin of him and his firm. Robert Duvall gives another terrific performance as Jerome Facher, Beatrice's attorney, who is the complete opposite of Schlichtmann. In a scene at a fancy hotel conference room, the frugal Facher is not impressed by any of the lawyers or their arguments, but the free pen that he can take home. It's a subtly funny scene that illustrates Facher perfectly. John Lithgow does a terrific job as Judge Walter Skinner, who Schlichtmann believes is siding with the enemy. A Civil Action is a story where the winners and losers are unclear, and it must have been difficult for writer-director Steven Zaillian to condense Harr's technical-laden novel. The result is a solid drama with powerhouse acting. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting and Powerful Cinema - An Eye-Opener for All
Review: This is the most incredible movie ever made about trying a wrongful death case and the accompanying emotional roller coaster the process generates for attorneys. The opening scene will plant you firmly in your chair as Jan Schlichtmann (played by John Travolta) explains the financial calculus behind accepting and declining potential clients with personal injury claims. Jerome Facher (played by Robert Duvall) is infuriating with his unending legal maneuverings designed to extract his corporate client from an untenable legal position permeated with liability. The traitorous conduct of Schlichtmann's partners will make you wretch with disgust as they scramble to save themselves at the expense of righting a terrible wrong evidenced by a dozen dead children. Engrossing, to say the least. Yes, the movie isn't perfect. Travolta's portrayal of Jan Schlichtmann doesn't completely mesh with the character in the book, there isn't a practicing attorney alive who doesn't know Rule 11 (court-imposed sanctions for unethical conduct), and the legal proceedings aren't quite right. Who cares? If the director had included the day-to-day minutiae involved in getting a case to trial, the film would have been three years long! My fellow reviewers are unreasonable in their unrelenting critiques. If you're involved in the legal profession, this film will make you step back and reassess your brand of client representation. Are you taking the right cases? Are you serving the needs of you clients - or yourself? Are you willing to give your all to the law? Interesting, and always stimulating, food for thought. If you're a lay person, hold on - you're in for the ride of your life.
Rating:
Summary: An edgy movie pays off
Review: Travolta is supperb as a personal injurie lawyer, who meets his match in a case that has caused 12 deaths and no definate source. Splendid performance by Robert Duvall, travolta's opponent and John Lithgow dose a fine job as the judge. A very engrosing movie has its dissapointments but pulls through with a suprisingly strong ending
Rating:
Summary: Could Have Been Titled: "Corporate America Kills People"
Review: If you enjoy the ABC television series "The Practice", you are sure to enjoy this suspenseful legal drama, based on a true story of corporate abuse. Though we are not a big fan's of John Travolta, he is very good in his role as the "eager money-seeking" lawyer he plays in this film. I particularly enjoy films based on true stories, because there are so many stories of injustice in America, why make up new ones? This one follows several small and large companies (Beatrice Foods is named specifically) who (basically) poison a community through several legal and moral violations of environmental law. The film leaves you wondering how such injustices continue to occur in America? It should also make you question each and every major corporation you do business with. The film captures the irony of lawyers at their best and their worst. The movie closes with an interesting twist - the one issue that the legal team lost focus on during their attempt to find justice.
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