Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) is an idealistic young law school graduate who discovers that having a degree and passing the bar doesn’t automatically make you a success. He gets a job working a bar that just happens to be owned by an ambulance chasing attorney named Bruiser Stone (Mickey Rourke). Bruiser takes Rudy on as an associate and assigns his associate, Deck Shifflet (Danny DeVito), to teach Rudy how to find cases. When Bruiser flees the country to escape an FBI investigation, Rudy and Deck start their own law firm. Rudy soon finds himself with the case of his young career, representing a family in a law suit against Great Benefit Insurance. Rudy also falls for Kelly (Claire Danes), a young woman who is being abused by her husband (Andrew Shue).
It can be hard to believe today but, in the 90s, every John Grisham novel was adapted for the screen. Most of the adaptations weren’t very good but audiences ate them up. In many ways, The Rainmaker is the ultimate John Grisham adaptation because it contains every single trope that John Grisham made popular with his legal thrillers. This time, Matt Damon is the charismatic attorney. Roy Scheider is the soulless corporate CEO who needs to be brought down. Jon Voight is the intimidating opposing counsel. Danny DeVito is the eccentric comic relief and Mickey Rourke is the dues ex machina who returns to the movie to give Rudy a piece of information at the exact right moment. The appeal of Grisham is that he made readers (and eventually moviegoers) feel like insiders while presenting them with stories that were essentially very simple good vs evil morality tales. The insurance company is so cartoonishly evil that there’s no doubt Rudy is going to defeat them. There’s also no doubt that Rudy is going to find a better calling than ambulance chasing because the only thing that people hate more than insurance companies is lawyers.
The Rainmaker is never as complex as it pretends to be but it’s an entertaining legal movie. It was also director Francis Ford Coppola’s last big hit. It’s really more of a Grisham film than a Coppola film but Coppola’s influence is still felt in the almost uniformly excellent cast. (Ignore Andrew Shue if you can. Melrose Place was very popular in the 90s.) Damon, Danes, Rourke, Voight, Dean Stockwell, Danny Glover, Teresa Wright, Virginia Madsen, and Mary Kay Place all give memorable performances. Roy Scheider is loathsome as the sweater-wearing CEO. Best of all is Danny DeVito, who gets all of the best lines.
The Rainmaker was the best of the 1990s Grisham adaptations. While it’s not quite a masterpiece, it’s still emotionally very satisfying.
Through the Shattered Lens 