The Rainmaker | | Cast : | Matt Damon, Danny DeVito | | Director : | Francis Ford Coppola | | Studio : | Paramount Studio | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | November 21, 1997 | | DVD Released Date : | January 07, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 19, 2005 | | Summary | Rainmaker | Content
 | This is a great movie! Matt Damon is so great in this part of a Southern Lawyer starting out, and Mickey Rourke and Danny Devito are perfectly cast as the supporting partners to Matt's role. I love this movie and have already watched it over and over. A must see. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 04, 2005 | | Summary | Watch it! Love it! | Content
| This is one of my all-time favorite movies.
Read the book if you want the backstory since the screenplay starts at the half point. It's entertaining and that's why we see movies in the first place, right? Matt Damon is just so darn likeable, you get drawn into his narration right off the bat. The screenplay was very well done. It IS a Coppola film, after all...he does work with some talented people. It was very nice to see Theresa Wright in this film, as well. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 03, 2005 | | Summary | Heartwarming. Satisfying. Vindicating. Heroic, | Content
| I wasn't expecting much when I dropped this 1998 movie into the DVD player...
There is a lot to commend itself. Matt Damon gives a convincing performance of a wet-behind-the-ears lawyer who finds himself with a big case on his hands just as he passes the bar exam! Danny Devito is slimy, shady, sarcastic, and sleazy (in other words, perfect Devito) as Damon's partner.
The main story involves a poor family whose son is denied needed medical treatment for leukemia. The sleazy Big Insurance Company has denied his claim and betting that they will not press the matter. They bet wrong! Our hero, guided by some unlikely supporters and a sympathetic judge (Dixon from Alias), come to the rescue.
The pieces fit together quite nicely. Justice is served, bad guys are taken down, and Matt Damon establishes himself as an unlikely, unwilling hero and endears himself to the pretty girl in the process.
Nothing wrong with this story or this film. Very delightful and satisfying in every respect.
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| Rating | | | Date | March 20, 2005 | | Summary | Justice may be clean but is mostly shady | Content
| Coppola can really deal with delicate subjects and make them palatable. Here he deals essentially with insurance companies that « levy » money from the poor and always deny their claims, or nearly, because these poor will not get a lawyer. The case is overdramatic : a young man who dies of leukemia because his insurance comparny denies him the most advanced forms of medicine under the pretext that they are expeirmental. Of course what is to happen happens. No question about the end of the film. We know it from the very start. But the film shows many details all along. Rotten lawyers who prefer a deal rather than a court case. Corporate lawyers who are ready to do anything to justify even the worst crimes of their corporations. Judges who have aged in the « pulpit » and want to get rid of as many cases as possible without long court proceedings. It also shows the tricks and the traps of the business : bugs (mikes of course) and how you trap them with fake phonecalls, hidden documents, fiired personnel under contracts that deny them the right to speak, even in court, blackmailing at times, menaces and violence, and so many other elements. It does not reassure us about justice since to win is the result of a game and if you do not have the best lawyer and a lot of money, you will never win. And even when you win, you lose in the end because the loser appeals the decision or just goes bankrupt when he is a corporation that can disappear under one identity and reappear under another practically overnight. In other words a deeply pessimistic film, even if the future can become better only if these battles are fought and won, even if the victory is transformed into a defeat in the short-run, because in the long-run the victory will be recognized and imposed.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
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| Rating | | | Date | January 30, 2005 | | Summary | It's Good, But Way Too Similar To The Verdict" | Content
| I greatly enjoyed the Rainmaker and have seen it numerous times. I must say however, that one of the reasons I like it so much is that it is so similar to the Verdict starring Paul Newman from 1982, which I loved. I am honestly surprised that there were no lawsuits regarding the two films, as I see simply names changed, characters made older or younger, etc. Matt Damon plays young, naive Rudy Baylor, a lawyer with no experience. Newman plays Frank Galvin, burnt-out alcoholic lawyer. Danny Devito plays the Jack Warden role. One case focuses upon a boy stricken with leukemia in which the insurance company will not cover a bone marrow transplant. The other film's focus is upon a woman who enters a hospital to give birth and is given the wrong anesthetic. The surprise witnesses are similar too. And the verdict in both films is extremely similar with both juries asking to be allowed to increase the monies awarded. Mr. Grisham probably thought that no one would notice 15 years later. Most didn't notice. I did. |
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