The Rainmaker

Released 1997
Stars Matt Damon, Claire Danes, Danny DeVito, Jon Voight, Danny Glover, Mary Kay Place, Virginia Madsen, Mickey Roarke, Roy Scheider, Andrew Shue, Dean Stockwell, Teresa Wright, Johnny Whitworth
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

When viewed from a cranky perspective, this by-the-book David vs. Goliath story doesn't offer any surprises, and it's a bit sad to watch director Francis Coppola (who also adapted John Grisham's bestseller) squandering his once-glorious talent on such conventional Hollywood fare. In a more charitable light, however, there's great pleasure to be found in Coppola's intelligent, no-nonsense handling of a plot that's every bit as involving as it is formulaic. Coppola also knows how to bring out the best in a stellar cast, and this is the movie (released in November 1997, just a few weeks before Good Will Hunting) that signaled Matt Damon's arrival as a major-league star. Damon plays Rudy Baylor, a young rookie lawyer in Memphis (location of many Grisham stories) who takes on a powerful insurance company (led by a sharklike lawyer played by Jon Voight) by representing the family of a boy who was denied potentially life-saving treatment for leukemia. Rudy also comes to the rescue of an abused wife Claire Danes) and learns the tricks of the legal trade from a seasoned paralegal (Danny DeVito), who sees Rudy as his ticket out of the sleazeball practice run by a shady lawyer Mickey Rourke.) There's no mystery about where this plot is going, but Coppola takes us there in high style with a sharp script, and Damon strikes just the right note of naivete and strategic intelligence. When Goliath inevitably falls, this courtroom David wins fair and square.

Summary by Jeff Shannon

This is a gripping story even though it's obvious what's going to happen. It's interesting to watch the young pup come out of law school and get indoctrinated into the ambulance-chaser school of hard knocks. In doing so, the movie shows the best and worst of lawyers at a time when it's difficult to think of lawyers in any way other than the negative. Deck (Danny DeVito) almost makes the ambulance-chaser seem noble through his earnestness, and the fight against the insurance company represents one of the best examples of what lawyers can accomplish. Jon Voight's character, on the other hand, represents the worst of lawyers--the high-priced suckjob who has sold out and will screw anyone to make a buck. What made the movie fun for me was having Danny Glover's judge doing exactly what I would like to see judges do, which is to take the morally correct side and help it win. While the movie feels like a John Grisham novel that's been condensed too much, it holds together well and is just plain fun. --Bill Alward, February 15, 2003