Civil Action, A Review

John Travolta plays Jan Schlichtman, an ambulance-chasing lawyer who`s one of the ten most elegible bachelors in Boston... he dresses well. His law firm is only interested in percentages. The parents of children who have died from leukemia in Woburn are not interesting to him until he finds out that those possibly culpable are actually big, rich corporations. He`s switched on to the dollar sign but in the process of the case he actually comes to care...What`s interesting about A Civil Action is that it covers territory that we don`t actually face honestly in courtroom dramas... the other agendas that are operating, like male egos, the hierarchy of the law that includes money, class and snobbery. And we don`t often see our protagonists make mistakes. Robert Duvall is a crucial ingredient here as the legal brain of one of the defendants. He`s so good, in court and on the screen. But in fact expectations were high of Steve Zaillian, the screenwriter of Schindler`s List and writer/director of a film I liked enormously, Searching for Bobby Fischer... he doesn`t take the easy option with films and although A Civil Action is not completely satisfactory, it`s a damn fine movie... David`s Comment:The presence of Robert Redford, as an executive producer, helps explain how this surely unfashionable film got off the ground. Zaillian`s careful, at times cynical, approach to the subject is welcome. Performances down the line are excellent, with Travolta seldom better as the yuppie lawyer who, despite himself, becomes obsessed with justice. It`s a refreshing change from the John Grisham school.