oh god how many john grisham lawyer films we have been munundated with ! in a perfect world , " a civil action " would be a breath of fresh air . it's cynical about lawyers in a way that grisham isn't . it's romantic in the exact opposite way a grisham book/film isn't . and , the capper , it has no distinct ending , and the law in hollywood films is that above all else , you must have an ending . even if it's based on a true story , a true story which hasn't yet ended , you must supply an ending , a false one , but an ending nevertheless . hell , " a civil action " is even more sly and more witty than any of the grisham works put together ( and that includes " the firm , " the only novel of his that will ever be regarded as a classic ) . yet it's also oddly and slightly unsatisfying . weird . this is , in fact , a steve zallian film , not just the work of a hack , and zallian is the director of the much-admired " search for bobby fischer " ( didn't see it ) and writer of none other than " schindler's list . " in short , i like this guy , and am a sucker for the way he tells his stories . after all , apart from the obvious it's-a-holocaust-film and it's-a-spielberg-film , isn't " schindler's list " just a damn brilliant film , not so much a holocaust film as it is a wonderful character study . " a civil action " is the same way : it's narrative is split between being a lawyer film and being a character study . and it's here that the film seems to go a bit wrong . the main complaint of this film is that while , yes , it's an engrossing lawyerly tale , it has no real ending , and that's not necessarily the problem with the film . it's that it's just kind of unsatisfying . if this were a great film , it would feel complete , and still end basically the same way . but this film just seems to end , and i don't want to be stupid and suggest an alternate ending should be tacked on : imagine , if you will , being one of those the film is about , looking forward to this film , and then discovered the truth has been through a surrealistic and unpleasant hollywood filter , just so the many won't bitch about what is , essentially , genuine . but the fact that it just ends is not , in all actuality , what is wrong with it . it's rather that zallian has chosen , in the last half hour , to adandon the traditional lawyer story , and chose the other part of his story , the one about the lawyer , one jan schlictman ( john travolta ) , who's shown in the opening and throughout most of the movie as a heartless but brilliant lawyer , brilliant because he's manipulative and he always wins . it wishes to make it all about jan in the end , but the truth is , his change , although nicely done , is not full . we see him suffering from a personal crisis , and travolta does do a pretty good job in depicting his change of heart , but in the end , we don't fully believe it . and i think that the problem is when he has made his decision , the film choses an odd angle to go at , a noble one , but one that gives the film's conclusion that of incompleteness . in the opening of the film , we see him doing his old schtick , manipulating courts , winning cases effortlessly , and then discussing on a heard radio interview how great he is at his job and how much he cares for his cases . in short , he's full of bullshit and we know it . in the film , he takes a case that is hardly desired : a town where several of the children have died mysteriously of lukemia and the source of the illness seems to be from a local factory that may or may not have been dumping waste into the river . point one , it's not of the usual criteria ( jan points out , wickedly , that dead or wounded children aren't nearly as sympathetic as those struck down in the midst of their success ) . point two , it has been through several lawyers . after turning them down , jan changes his mind ( a muddled scene - he stops his car on a bridge , looks out . . . is he feeling a sense of overachievement ? ) , and he and his team of lawyers ( tony shalhoub , zeljko ivanek , and accountant william h . macy ) head out to the town to do battle with the town's company . they spend millions of dollars examining the land , test the water , what have you ( this is where stephen fry , a possible oscar nominee for his brilliant performance in " wilde , " pops up thanklessly ) , and in the meantime question the parents of the dead children , and then , unsuccessfully , the workers at the plant . they also find themselves clashing with a brilliant lawyer for the company , the eccentric jerome facher , played by robert duvall ( more on him later on ) . as we progress , we get so involved in the way the story is being told , which is engulfing everything around it , including the individual and brief stories of some of the townspeople ( one of the best is a bit with james gandolfini as an employee of the plant living across the street from kathleen quinland , who lost her child , who begins to have a personal crisis ) . things begin to go downhill for the lawyers in the second half , as they are up against impossible odds : the judge ( john lithgow ) is not only a strickler , but a pal of facher ; the employees of the plant are either afraid or to loyal to testify ; no concrete evidence is being found , depsite the money spent to find it ; and they are quickly running out of money . as macy mortgages everything he can , including their homes and their office , he slowly loses his sanity ( his meatiest role since , oh , " fargo " ) , and we the audience begin to feel a real loss of hope for our protagonist . in fact , the last half hour is such a change from the rest of the film and so unresolved that it has been widely panned as not being up to par ( owen gleiberman , especially , criticized the film for not being overly-dramatic . . . i suppose like a grisham novel ) . this wouldn't be so if the change in jan had not been handled the way it is : instead of having a change of heart and automatically being perceived as good , he's seen as being still full of bullshit . because he doesn't take stock in the cares of his partners , and causes them all to lose their money and noteriaty in the lawyer field because he wants to help the people of the town , he is instead seen as being of good nature but not sure how to bring that out . the final half tries to redeem this , as must have been the point of making this in zallian's mind , but what follows is a series of scenes where we merely see him making personal stands for his beliefs , and though he has changed considerably from the opening moments when he's seen speeding back and forth from the town that wishes to employ him ( and thusly receiving two speeding tickets ) , we still feel that the big change in his life is that he's not rich and esteemed anymore ( the film's final title card is witty but in all actuality shallow ) . the fault is not that there is no closure to the court case ( it's still going on , you know ) , but that its personal story feels like it needs either another chapter or another angle in the final one it has . we need to feel like the character has really made a big change in his life , and that the story is how a story of strife like the one of the town could inspire such a whopping change in his personal life . it only feels like half of that . maybe even less . and it's not travolta , who does a great job here ( though never to be a truly memorable performance of his ) , but rather zallian , whose final chapter needs a rewrite . up to then , though , it's an engrossing drama , one of the best of the year in fact , and one of the best lawyer films , period . the reason is because it recognizes that a court trial is not about those being defended or prosecuted , but rather it's about the lawyers , the knights who battle eachother . we learn that the company is almost positively to blame for the deaths in the town , but the reason it can't be blamed is because it has the best prosecution you can find . and duvall's facher is such a brilliant character and he does such a magnificent job at portraying that man that it's almost easy to overlook how subtley great he is . facher is seen as an elderly man , a goofy eccentric , carrying a broken brown bag with stickers on it , eating lunches out of paper bags , and making a point to take time out of his day to listen to the radio , and scold anyone who interupts him . but look deeper and you see a master at work : his evil and manipulative nature are hidden under the eccentricities that others don upon him , and it's difficult as hell to clearly generalize him in any way . that's why i liked this film : it's hard to put a pointer on . you can never see exactly where this film will land , and even when the credits roll , you still aren't sure what to make of it . call it the zallian effect . same thing happened with " schindler's list " ( not that i'm comparing oskar schindler to jan schlictman ) . each film is so greatly crafted that you can't help but get involved in its broad storytelling , interesting characters , and , most peculiarly , the wit that comes along with it . if only it felt totally complete ( like , say , " schindler's list , " though at this point it may be unfair to make comparisons between the two ) , it might have been one of the best films of the year , and along with that , a full breath of fresh air .
