Nothing Extraordinary About The Rain: The Rainmaker Is Utterly Unmemorable!

The Good: Good acting, Good characters, Good pacing
The Bad: Idealistic themes and plot
The Basics: Simple and predictable, The Rainmaker doesn't fail to please, but it does little beyond meeting our expectations.


There are some novelists who write one or two good novels, then spend the rest of their careers churning out the same two stories over and over again. Their works populate every bus station, airport and drug store. John Grisham, Tom Clancy and V.C. Andrews are three such authors who have written enough garbage such that their paperbacks will always be available in any grocery store that has books.

So, as you may figure, I went into John Grisham's The Rainmaker with pretty low expectations. It turns out that The Rainmaker is one of Grisham's two works that were pretty good, one of the two that established him, it appears, as a paperback staple.

The superlative aspect of this film is the acting. Four actors especially give extraordinary performances. They are: Matt Damon (rather predictably as his character Rudy Baylor, is the lawyer protagonist), Danny DeVito (the loser lawyer Deck Schifflet), Claire Dane (as an abused wife) and Danny Glover (as the strangely uncredited Judge Tyrone Kipler). The real standout of the four is Claire Danes. Danes plays Kelly Riker with amazing versatility. She is vivid as a broken, lost, hurt and depreciated human being. Her acting took me by surprise. She's truly quite fabulous as Kelly.

The Rainmaker focuses on Rudy Baylor, a newly bar-approved lawyer. He is taking on an insurance company for denying the claim (and payment) of a youth with leukemia. With the aid of the sloppy Deck, Rudy makes and tries a case against a corporate law team that seems to have all of the advantages. Interspersed with his big trial, Rudy comes to the aid of Kelly, a victim of domestic abuse by her alcoholic husband. Rudy's special interest in the young woman comes from the fact that he grew up watching his father beat his mother.

That's the type of character fact that is slipped into The Rainmaker throughout. Usually, the details involve Rudy. Occasionally, we get a fact about Deck or Judge Kipler that flesh them out as viable individuals. Character is something sufficiently built up in The Rainmaker and that's refreshing.

What isn't is the plot. It plods along without any real intensity or passion. It's slow and it feels slow. The idealism gets tired early on. The sense of hope throughout the film is labored.

In all, I'd recommend the film for a rainy afternoon where you're bored and want a film you don't have to think much about. Outside that . . .

For other films involving lawyers, please check out my takes on:
The Verdict
The Social Network
Philadelphia

5.5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my lists of movie reviews by clicking here!

© 2011, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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