Word: devito
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Coppola's screenplay changes little of the book's simplistic plot. Matt Damon, following in the footsteps of Matthew McConaughey, is Rudy Baylor, a recent law-school grad with a soft spot for people in need. With the help of his diminutive mentor (Danny DeVito), Rudy evolves into an ethics-driven Superman--a lawyer with a heart, out to save the world from evil. First, there is his bold attack on a gargantuan insurance company that has a method of denying claims until policyholders give up. Rudy is astounded by the corruption of such a company that refuses...
...only shyster in town who's willing to take a chance on young Rudy; she's his landlady who is nowhere near as ditsy as she looks. And like the rest of a constantly bestartling supporting cast, led by Jon Voight and Danny DeVito as deliciously disparate masters of legal sleaze, they're terrific. Another good rule is not to take Grisham novels as seriously as the writer does when you bring them to the screen, and Coppola fulfills that imperative too. This one is about a big insurance company trying to cheat a poor family out of medical payments...
...course, this is all but one side of the police force-the inside. To the rest of L.A., as portrayed in the tell-all rag penned by the repulsive Sid Hudgeons (an irritating-as-heck Danny DeVito), the police force is personified by the slick shining example of sartorial splendor, Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey). With busts carefully engineered through planted drugs or hommes fatales, Vincennes and Hudgeons put on a show for the public that leaves the face of the L.A. police indistinguishable from the ruthlessly just, squeakyclean "Dragnet"-type TV program Vincennes advises...
...Danny DeVito is annoying. I won't withhold the good news that his character dies over the course of the film-because you might be wondering whether or not he does-and advance notice of happy occurrences makes life a little sweeter...
...heart of its intricacy, the film basically follows the misfortunes of three Los Angeles cops as they trace the links among the murder of a corrupt colleague, a pioneer of sleazoid celebrity journalism (Danny DeVito, who brings huge comic relish to the role), a shadowy social climber (David Straithairn), who is enamored of underworld glamour, a call girl (an entrancing Kim Basinger) working for a service whose employees are obliged to imitate movie stars (she's the Veronica Lake look-alike), and, eventually, major players in the Los Angeles law-enforcement hierarchy...