The Rainmaker

B

Well, I guess no movie based on a John Grisham book can ever be so good. I mean look at the candidates. The Firm was a stupid movie based on a very stupid book. I couldn't finish reading The Runaway Jury - and didn't dare see the movie. A Time To Kill was a decent movie. The Rainmaker was a lousy book, but then the movie is surprisingly watchable - thanks to Francis Ford Coppola.

Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) is a fresh graduate from law-school. Just after taking his bar exam, he signs up to work for "Bruiser" Stone (Mickey Roarke) and gets partnered with ambulance-chaser Deck Shiffler (Danny DeVito). To start of with they are up for three things: drafting Rudy's landlady's will, a domestic violence case involving Kelly Riker (Claire Danes), who Rudy eventually falls in love with. And the most promising one, insurance fraud against the huge corporation Great Benefits for denying claims to a leukimic client. And so, it's Rudy, on his first case, up against Great Benefit's team of top-deck attorneys, led by Leo F. Drummond (Jon Voight).

Now, had this been more of a realistic movie, there's not way that Rudy could ever win this case. But it's John Grisham, so it's more like cartoon. And Francis Ford Coppola caught this, and he wisely set the movie in tune with its incredulous plot - to make it half drama, half comedy. So we have a good time watching it, smiles and occasional laughs, and so we rarely notice how unsound whatever transpires on screen actually are. It's still not very convincing, is it? Fortunately, it gets better.

Ford Coppola adds another element to the formula. As co-writer, he adds a voice-over by Rudy, full of quips about lawyers and lawyer jokes. We hence get another dimension to Rudy, his disgust for the nature of the law system and the lawyers that preserve them as it unfolds on screen, as well as his determination to not be dragged down to be like the "sharks in the muddy water". The screenplay is most times witty and fast moving, and we are entertained and engaged throughout the running length.

I am sorry if I come down harshly initially. It's due to my unsavoury experience reading the book almost 5 years ago - and the bad taste still lingers. But that's a testament, I suppose, how a gifted director-screenwriter could take a mediocre book and make a good movie out of it.
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