Word: grisham
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This time it is once acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola who has been swept up in the heavy-handed moralistic mess that is John Grisham's The Rainmaker. And he's inexplicably proud of it too. He puts the author's name in front of the title as if to warn us before the movie even begins: "This is a Grisham movie! Watch Coppola go mainstream!" Indeed, he keeps his promise: for Godfather fans, John Grisham's The Rainmaker is painful to watch...
...total absence of conflict or plausibility in the story is a concern that Coppola doesn't seem worried by. Indeed, he has done something unforgivable with Rainmaker. He has made John Grisham--the king of popcorn thrillers--lethally boring. There is no shameless entertainment here, no chance to be swept up in random plot twists or instant thrills. Instead, what we get is two hours of disjointed storytelling--without a touch of drama...
...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 to pay for the medical treatment of a young man dying of leukemia. But one heroic task is certainly not enough for a Grisham leading man. In the process of his assault on the insurance company, Rudy falls in love with a battered wife (Claire Danes) who must be freed from the clutches of her brutally abusive husband...
Studio executives smile as America continues to be indulged in its Grisham frenzy--it makes for profitable publishing, they think, so why shouldn't it make for blockbuster movies? With the exception of The Chamber, all of the Grisham adaptations have dominated the box office with over $100 million...
...irony of the situation is devastatingly clear. Grisham is to the world of books what "big studio" pictures have generally come to be in the world of movies: a manipulative, diluted heap of cliches. The even greater tragedy is that the Grisham-studio team has swept up many a prominent director in its platitudes. Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa, The Firm), Alan Pakula (Sophie's Choice, The Pelican Brief), and Joel Schumacher (Falling Down, A Time to Kill) have fallen prey to the Grisham spell...