(1998)
2.5
Jason Clark
A respectable adaptation of a rather stuffy story, Steven Zaillian's account of a man who fought the law and the law won is never a bulls-eye, but has too many solid components to be written off as a misfire. Chief among them are John Travolta, sharp and nuanced as the head counsel, and especially Robert Duvall, who gives every scene he's in real bite. The storytelling is muddled at times, and the pacing is sometimes too lethargic, but Zaillian knows his way around the territory, and Conrad L. Hall's expert cinematography gives the film an elegant feel, especially for what is basically a highly-appointed courtroom drama. Perhaps its best attribute is that it is essentially a story about defeat rather than blind triumph, unusual for this genre to say the least. Even when it falls into legal clichés, the film has a ring of truth, and compared with the thematically similar Julia Roberts starrer Erin Brockovich, it succeeds as a real-life chronicle because it retains a core of integrity, instead of succumbing to the status of star vehicle like Steven Soderbergh's 2000 release.
A Civil Action on AllMovie
A Civil Action (1998)
