a civil action * * * 1/2 . directed , written , executive-produced by steven zaillian . from the book by jonathan harr . photography , conrad l . hall . editing , wayne wahrman . production design , david gropman . music , danny elfman . produced by scott rudin , robert redford and rachel pfeffer . cast : john travolta ( jan schlichtmann ) , robert duvall ( jerome facher ) , tony shalhoub ( kevin conway ) , william h . macy ( james gordon ) , zeljko ivanek ( bill crowley ) , bruce norris ( william cheeseman ) , kathleen quinlan ( anne anderson ) , peter jacobson ( neil jacobs ) , mary mara ( kathy boyer ) , james gandolfini ( al love ) , stephen fry ( pinder ) , dan hedaya ( john riley ) , sydney pollack ( al eustis ) , et al . a touchstone release . 113 minutes . pg-13 . in these days of lawyer-jokes , the legal profession could use some redemption . it comes in " a civil action , " which is excellent , intelligent , touching , complex , impeccably scripted , directed , produced and beautifully served by all its performers . it's a true story , one that gave birth to a prize-winning book . in the 1970s , in woburn , mass . , many children died of leukemia . it was a mystery for most people , but not for their parents who identified the culprit : water polluted --better yet , poisoned--by two industrial giants , the grace co , and beatrice foods . the boston firm of jean schlichtmann ( travolta ) , a personal-injury lawyer ( aka an ambulance chaser ) is doing very well . when the children's families ask him to take their case , travolta politely declines . on the way to woburn in his speeding porsche , he gets a ticket . on the way back , whether by cinematic device or real coincidence-- i cannot tell , but it matters little--comes a second ticket , next to the very location of the toxic dumping . is schlichtmann having an epiphany ? does it dawn on him that a win over the mega-corporations could fill his firm's coffers ? is it a combination of both ? hard to tell . but he takes the case and , in the long run , becomes haunted by it , to the point that he and his associates have to keep borrowing from banks , mortgaging their possessions , homes , insurance policies , and going broke . the fluid , meticulous but unforced script and direction are by steven zaillian , who rightly jumped to fame with his scenario for schindler's list . his credits also include the writing ( from other true-story books ) the hospital-based awakenings , and the search for bobby fisher ( zaillian's first directorial job ) about a child who was a chess prodigy . all those titles , plus the scenario for the fictional jack the bear , are of works that move and highlight zaillian's unquestionable compassion . he moves you without resorting to kitsch , phony dramatics , manipulation of emotions . a civil action avoids flamboyance , yet shines by its empathy for human misery . it is also a great thriller-plus-courtroom drama , superior because of its ( mostly ) low-key approach , its refusal to yield to flashy dramatics , its exceptionally good characterizations , whether full-blown or just sketched in . at the root of the film we have a david and goliath story of common working-class people against corporate king kongs , and of a small law firm versus the infinite funds of grace and beatrice . the latter's platoons of lawyers are headed by a powerhouse memorably --if a little too colorfully-- played by robert duvall , a prince of foxes . every moment counts in the suspenseful depiction of who will outsmart whom , which strings will be pulled . each deposition is a self-contained , mesmerizing drama . we are made painfully conscious that this david is not the biblical one ; that lawsuits seldom win outright ; that the whole procedure is a preamble to settlements ; that of fifty appeals , only five win in the courts . of course , the film gets its momentum and its thrills from the use of the tricks of the movie trade , but these are in pastels rather than screaming colors . from photography to editing , from framing to continuity , from dialogue or confrontations to the first-rate score by danny elfman , the picture remains discreet and unexplosive . to put the movie in a historical context , we are , in a sense , in postmodern , post-post-post-frank capra populist territory of the little people and the masters of the land , all framed by the fact-of-life that justice and the law are far from synonymous . details are chosen with extraordinary care , from repressed tearfulness , to the gradual impoverishment of the smaller law-firm , to the harvard club encounter of travolta and grace's ceo . he is wonderfully , quirkily played by director sydney pollack . as for travolta --or should i say lazarus ? -- i'll just say that he continues his extraordinary comeback like a speeding bullet . " le mauvais gout mene au crime " ( stendhal ) edwin jahiel's movie reviews are at <a href= " http : //www . prairienet . org/ejahiel " >http : //www . prairienet . org/ejahiel</a> 
