90s Movie Review - The Rainmaker

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Genre: Drama/ Thriller
Runtime: 135 minutes
Year: 1997
Starring: Matt Damon, Danny DeVito, Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke, Danny Glover, Roy Scheider, Claire Danes, Dean Stockwell, Andrew Shue, Mary Kay Place, Virginia Madsen

Description: An underdog lawyer (Matt Damon) takes on a fraudulent insurance company.  

Review: Writer John Grisham is a star. A film adaptation of one of his legal thrillers guarantees commercial success. That must have been the motivation for Francis Ford Coppola. But with “The Rainmaker” he delivers a pretty standard courtroom drama.
John Grisham’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide, he is a very successful author. And many of his films have been turned into movies, also successfully. Films like “The Firm”, “The Client” and “The Chamber” are all movie I personally enjoyed, just as much as the books.
“The Rainmaker” centers around Rudy Baylor, a nearly graduated lawyer who haas the best interests of the correct person at heart. He is looking for work in Memphis, hoping to become a so-called ‘rainmaker’: a lawyer who makes the money. Both for the client and for himself, because in the U.S.A. a third of the compensation goes to the lawyer. Rudy initially starts at a little law firm ran by a freebooter who doesn’t take the law too seriously. as so-called ‘ambulance-chasers’, they sour hospitals looking for victims who might want to file a lawsuit against the instigators of the harm.
One of them is Mrs. Black, the mother of a young leukemia patient. She files a lawsuit against the insurance company Great Benefit, because it refuses to pay for an operation that could save her son’s life. Meanwhile Rudy decides to set up his own firm, along with colleague Deck Shifflet, a unlicensed lawyer who has failed his court exam several times. a battle ensues between Rudy and Great Benefit.
The film is structured very standard. There are some strong performances, because “The Rainmaker” has a great cast. But overall the film doesn’t have anything special to offer. It’s a solid film, just not the exciting.

Rating: 3/ 5