A Civil Action
A Civil Action is about a case involving a leukemia cluster in a small town. Kids are getting sick and dying, and the residents hire a hotshot lawyer to represent them against a pair of giant corporations that have turned the town’s drinking water into a carcinogenic punch bowl.1
“Lawyer Errs on the Side of Angels”: That’s the newsy headline atop Janet Maslin’s New York Times review of A Civil Action, the Hollywood release, based on the book by Jonathan Harr, in which attorney Jan Schlichtmann sues two large corporations on behalf of leukemia-stricken children in Woburn, Massachusetts. “Fighting the good fight,” reads a nearby photo caption.2
The problems inherent in the American judicial system are a part of everybody’s daily lives, whether you experience them first-hand in the courts or read about them ad nauseam in the press. In ‘A Civil Action’ Jonathan Harr follows one important lawsuit, from conception to conclusion, in a detailed and fascinating history that stretches over nearly thirty years.3
But, apparently, even ol’ Johnny Boy his own self has had a hankerin’ to be a lawyer. And his new movie, A Civil Action, he gets to be both stereotypes, moving from one to the other in a character evolution.4
Where A Civil Action excels, though, is in its use of voices. In several cues, especially ‘Why?’, ‘The Letter’ and the conclusive ‘End Credit Suite’, the choir rises to the fore and becomes the melodic driving force of the score.5