Movie Review: "A Civil Action" 12/25/98

This is a movie review for "A Civil Action", released December 25, 1998. We watched this October 20, 2020.

Trailer

Genre

Drama

Cast

John Travolta - Jan Schlichtmann

Robert Duvall - Jerome Facher

Tony Shalhoub - Kevin Conway

William H. Macy - James Gordon

Zeljko Ivanek - Bill Crowley

Bruce Norris - William Cheeseman

John Lithgow - Judge Walter J. Skinner

Plot

When children start developing childhood leukemia in a local town, the town starts to ask questions and demand a fix to the problem. Eight families ban together to file a civil lawsuit against a factory nearby that is making their water contaminated and unusable. Can they get justice? Can they fix their water?

Rating Criteria

0/5 – No value whatsoever. Absolute waste of time.

1/5 – Barely worth any time.

2/5 – Pathetic but has a bit of something to hold the attention a little.

3/5 – Somewhat kept the attention but could definitely have used more.

4/5 – Good, but not awe-strikingly amazing. Could have maybe used a bit more to the movie.

5/5 – Go see it! Wonderful movie all around. – characters, music, theme, story line, etc.

4/5 - *SPOILERS*

This is based on a true story about a water aquifer being contaminated in Woburn, Massachusetts in the late 1970s. The case (from what I can see) lasted into 1990 after everything was dealt with, including appeals.

"1982 lawsuit accusing corporate giants W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods of contaminating the waters of Woburn, Mass."¹ with "the issue of trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent, and its contamination of a local aquifer"².

Anyways, this is a long drawn out battle of a few families with a few lawyers going against a corporation with a plethora of lawyers. The partners fighting for the families start going broke because they aren't paid through the lengthy process and it causes tensions between the partners.

I had the biggest issue with the ending. It wrapped up fairly well, especially for being a "based on a true story" tale. The issue I had was the fact that they didn't really tell what happened between the main lawyer and his ex-partners, but it did tell the verdict that the case eventually came to.

The ending (don't watch if you don't want a spoiler):

Aside this one point, it was a good movie. It has been over 3 years since I watched it, and honestly I have forgotten about it by now so it took me a while to research to recollect, but it was good. Not super noteworthy or one to really remember, but decent. Worth it? Go for it. It isn't as action packed as a Mission Impossible movie, obviously, but not a waste of time (especially if you like case solving things and court hearing stuff, and justice, etc).

That's it! Thank you for reading. More to come in the future. Still about a dozen left to write for movies watched in 2020. ^.^'

~ R

Twitter X @gracie_delunac

Email graciemaedelunac@yahoo.com

Facebook https://facebook.com/GracieMaeDeLunac/

Skype gracelyn2019@yahoo.com

¹ https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/assets/docs_f_o/lesson_plan_case_study_a_civil_action_508.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiLq7iezdaDAxVkjIkEHSWECLgQFnoECBEQBQ&usg=AOvVaw3C07yBgZr6Mc50wYfRCybP

² https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Civil_Action_(film)#:~:text=Based%20on%20the%201995%20book,contamination%20of%20a%20local%20aquifer.