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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: TRAVOLTA,JOHN
EAN: 9786305428282
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 630542828X
Label: Walt Disney Video
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Video
Number Of Items: 1
Picture Format: Letterbox
Publisher: Walt Disney Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: July 13, 1999
Running Time: 115 minutes
Sales Rank: 9950
Studio: Walt Disney Video
Theatrical Release Date: January 08, 1999
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Jan Schlichtmann is a cynical, high-priced personal injury attorney who only takes big-money cases he can safely settle out of court. Though his latest case at first appears straightforward, Schlichtmann soon becomes entangled in an epic legal battle ... one where he's willing to put his career, reputation, and all that he owns on the line for the rights of his clients! Also featuring Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, and John Lithgow -- this gripping, widely acclaimed hit delivers edge-of-your-seat entertainment!
Amazon.com:
Jonathan Harr's nonfiction bestseller was a shot in the arm for those seeking more than last-minute heroics akin to a John Grisham thriller. Here was a labyrinthine case involving industrial pollution by two highly regarded corporations, contaminated drinking water, and the deaths of innocent children in New England, circa 1981. The case has hundreds of twists and takes our hero--a steady, respectable lawyer named Jan Schlichtmann--and turns his life into personal disaster. Instead of celebrating the law, the story is a maddening and rewarding look at the elusiveness of the courtroom case.
Steven Zaillian, who won an Oscar for adapting Schindler's List and directed Searching for Bobby Fischer, boils Harr's 502-page book into a complete, satisfactory film experience. Book readers will no doubt jeer the streamlining Zaillian had to perform to make the movie flow. Most changes can be quickly defused with the exception of the film's portrait of Schlichtmann. The lawyer has been turned into a movie star, an ultra-slick, cold-hearted gentleman who finds his purpose in working the case. Casting a stalwart John Travolta again diverges from the book, which right from the opening pages showed us a Schlichtmann with feet of clay. As Schlichtmann's partners (including William H. Macy and Tony Shalhoub) descend into the case, the unbridled sense of power and money is abandoned. This case is ultimately about survival.
Zaillian provides an excellent narrative for the sordid facts of personal injury suits, in which money is the only reward for lost or broken lives (deftly introduced in the film's opening scene). Zaillian also stays away from dwelling on the illness of the children involved, focusing on the gaunt faces of the parents who survive (Kathleen Quinlan, James Gandolfini) in controlled anguish. His evil characters--an industrial plant's owner (Dan Hedaya) and a corporate lawyer (another fine acting spin by director Sydney Pollack)--are so human it's terrifying. Zaillian's final ace in the hole is Oscar-nominee Robert Duvall. Perfectly cast as Travolta's opposition, Jerome Facher, Duvall steals scenes with the abbreviated dialogue; he turns a fancy settlement meeting into a farce with one line. Facher is not a callous, love-to-hate-him lawyer like James Mason in The Verdict. Facher represents the law at its brilliant foundation: to best represent one's client. With a taped-together briefcase and dry humor, Facher, not Schlichtmann, is the character who captures us by the film's end. --Doug Thomas
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - I repeat >> snalen "snalen" .................
I copy and paste >> snalen "snalen" - (another reviewer's commentary here) who expressed it perfectly. "snalen" said:
Jan Schlichtmann (Travolta) is a Boston tort lawyer and something of an ambulance chaser who is initially reluctant to take on an industrial pollution case involving some children dead of leukemia in rural New England. He changes his mind when he realizes the likely defendants are a couple of big companies with particularly deep pockets and smells the possibility of serious money. Over time, however his interest in the case becomes a moral obsession. The cynical becomes a crusader, refusing offers to settle as his company's finances spiral downwards towards bankruptcy.
If you like courtroom dramas, this is highly recommended. It's one of the best specimens of the genre to come out of America since `The Verdict'. It's interesting to compare it to `Erin Brockovich' released a couple of years later. EB is about how a heroic small timer takes on the big boys of corporate America and how her pluck and determination triumphs over all obstacles, something of a legal feelgood movie in other words. Which this, to its great credit, is not. Its central character, for starters, is far more amibivalently likeable: initially just out for a fast buck, moral seriousness has to creep up on him and take him by surprise (perhaps reminding writer/director Zaillian of Oskar Schindler whose story he scripted for Spielberg a few years earlier) and the story's development paints a significantly ... Read More
Rating: - Solid Flick with very pertinent material despite its age.
As a former resident of the Greater Boston area this was a film that evoked memories on a number of levels. The investigations of cancer clusters and their relationship to EPA Super Fund Sites is still something that should be coordinated. Moving film with solid performances.The follow up to the story is perhaps more hopeful. The sites have been cleaned and are being utilized! Despite the irepairable damage done to these families America can heal itself via the tenacious actions of its citizen/victims and the scar tissue shoud be a reminder as to the dangerous and destructive nature of unmonitored business interests.
Rating: - A tort lawyer finds new meaning in life and goes down the path of righteous litigation; An underdog against the large corp
(1) A Civil Action is a 1998 film, starring John Travolta (as plaintiff's attorney Jan Schlichtmann) and Robert Duvall, based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Harr. Both the book and the film are based on the real-life case of Anderson v. Cryovac that took place in Woburn, Massachusetts in the 1980s.
(2) John Travolta plays a tort lawyer part of tort law firm making millions from large corporations by filing personal injuries on behalf of their clients.
(3) He is intellectually attracted (seeing the the financial jackpot and oppurtunity to make millions for his firm and partners) to a case about a large corporation polluting the waters of a small town which incidentally shows a high rise of deaths due to cancer.
(4) Travolta law firm tries to proove that the deaths due the cancer of the many residents of that down were actually due to the consumption of the water from the river where the toxic waste from the company were dumped.
(5) In a surprising move , and totally against his nature he decides against taking a reasonably sizable sum of money as settlement (from the corporation) on behalf of the town dwellers to end the case there which would have left Travolta and his partners with sizable monies and would have also left his clients some money. But the clients are not after money, they are after truth and want justice to be served against the large corporation.
(6) The culprit in question are actually 2 companies of which Robert ... Read More
Rating: - A page turner
A heart wrenching page turner! You will root for this guy all along. You will bite your nails, become invested and get your heart broken.
Don't bother renting the movie.
Rating:  - Far from great, but some great performances help keep the audience satisfied...
I'll be completely honest here. I saw `A Civil Action' because I am in love with James Gandolfini. Sadly his character has very little screen time although he is quite convincing with what he has to work with. What I found though was a nice little court room drama that is interesting as much as it is frustrating and deserves at least a little attention. This movie is by no means a brilliant film, but it does sport a few excellent performances that help elevate the plot and leave the audience at least satisfied with the overall effect of the film.
`A Civil Action' is based on a true story of the small town of Woburn Massachusetts where two large corporations through carelessness and negligence poisoned the drinking water thus resulting in the deaths of eight children. The town hires Jan Schlichtmann, a personal injury attorney, to find out what killed their children and get them an apology. Money is not important to them, but as Schlichtmann points out, money is how these corporations apologize. Jan, who was initially apposed to the case, becomes personally invested which, as he brings out, is the worst thing a lawyer can do. As he goes to battle with the lawyers for the two corporations, WR Grace and Beatrice Foods, it appears he may be in way over his head.
Where the movie shines is in interaction between Schlichtmann and rival lawyer Jerome Facher, thanks in large part to the performances by both Travolta and Duvall. John Travolta may play Schlichtmann almost a polar opposite ... Read More
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