Starring: John Travolta, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, Tony Shalhoub, John Lithgow, James Gandolfini, Dan Hedaya, Kathleen Quinlan
We witness in A Civil Action an attorney who goes against all of his instincts and sinks his fortune and career because he becomes too emotionally involved in a case. The attorney, Jan Schlictmann (Travolta), narrates throughout and explains how the litigation process works. He knows lawsuits are created so settlements can be reached. Only 1.5% of lawsuits filed in the U.S. ever reach a verdict. He explains how pride and emotional attachment to a case are as useful as "a doctor who recoils at the sight of blood." Yet, throughout A Civil Action, we see him break all of his own rules and we can only helplessly stand by as it costs him.
Schlictmann is a successful personal injury lawyer who has a nose for cases that will pay off. His strategy is to sink his firm's money into the case in order to win a huge settlement later. This strategy works until his partners present him with a class action lawsuit filed by residents of a small Massachusetts town. Numerous town children died from various illnesses caused by illegal chemical dumping by local factories, which contaminated the town's water supply. Schlictmann's initial instinct is to drop the case, but after meeting with grieving families and discovering the factories are run by two multi-billion dollar corporations, he decides to take the case. His reluctance at first is based on his experience that children pay the least in the hierarchy of personal injury, but he allows himself to be moved, which goes against his belief in emotional detachment.
The antithesis of Schlictmann is Jerome Facher (Duvall), the veteran attorney for one of the co-defendants. He is a skilled tactician. He understands what will happen and why, correctly foreseeing how the case will play out. At one critical point, he offers Jan a settlement (which Jan rejects) knowing full well that his client will ultimately be exonerated. In a way, Facher sees Jan as we do...a smart lawyer whose judgment is clouded and legal strategy compromised by emotion. He knows the settlement will not be accepted, but he intuits, "The case will come down to people as it always does." He is right to assume that a jury would be unpredictable because years of experience tells him that.
Adding considerable tension is his firm falling deeper and deeper into debt while trying to win the case. They accrue millions in debt and unpaid taxes. The firm's accountant (Macy) pleads with Jan to settle in order to avoid further financial woes. "We are floating on credit. Every dollar we spend is a dollar we don't have." All of the external factors scream for Jan to settle, but he doesn't, believing foolishly he will win a big figure settlement.
A Civil Action is not a courtroom drama in the sense we usually think of courtroom dramas. It is about the grueling process of maneuvering through the treacherous legal system. Jan thinks he is searching for the truth. Facher advises him differently, "If you are searching for truth, you will find it at the bottom of a bottomless pit." He is not cynical, just knowing. A Civil Action creates an almost insider's view of the justice system, which in the case of personal injury is less about justice and more about the big payday. Jan's clients want an apology. Jan replies, "Corporations apologize with their checkbooks."
Travolta's performance is all the more captivating because we see him make wrong decision after wrong decision while being confident he is making the right ones. Duvall, in an Oscar-nominated performance, is not simply wise, but turns Facher into an likable eccentric who continually totes around a raggedy briefcase and finds joy in conference room pens. His superstitions may fool people, but he reveals calculation in his legal strategy after deposing the parents. "These people can never testify." They never do, which stuns Jan, whose biggest flaw is his faith in a legal system he knows full well is compromised.
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