This is How Movies Should Be Made

Good movie but grossly overrated

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Can anyone say "Pinto"? In an obvious reference to the infamous Ford-built, exploding pint-size vehicle, a class action suit is the main plot line. And it's interesting, too, to witness what a cost-analysis means when it comes to dealing with the retooling of a car factory or paying the victims money later. Hackman, another favorite of mine, is his usually godly self. If anyone has seen a bad Hackman performance, email me and tell me, please, because I haven't seen it and until I do, Hackman remains an acting god in my eyes. Mastrantonio is okay - she is not a favorite of mine, but she handles this role well, and despite someone's claims of predictability, this film is not that predictable. A few plot twists, early and late, make the film more enjoyable and keep the suspense alive right to the end. Fred Dalton Thompson (who became a U.S. Senator from Tennessee) and Laurence Fishburne front a strong supporting cast. But Hackman steals the movie, as he deserves to. If nothing else, you learn from this film that "actuary analysis" is just insane.

Reviewing a movie 20 years following its release is a curious task, as it entails a reflection on its content not merely as film, but as a comment woven of how the movie compares against similar films, and also films of the era from which it originates. "Class Action" serves two masters - those of courtroom drama, and those of family drama. It serves neither especially well.Courtroom drama is often used as a metaphor for a broader morality play, weighing different varieties of good and evil, or merely right versus wrong. Done well, courtroom drama is capable of producing authentic conflict that forms the basis of outstanding films, such as "A Few Good Men" and "Presumed Innocent," where the core conflict reflected a measure of unease about the kind of justice the films offered, and asking the viewer to consider whether their results were right. "Class Action," however, aspires to no such heights, tossing up a legal softball in the form of a thinly-veiled fictionalization of the famed 1970's Ford "exploding Pinto" design. With the legal drama paper thin, the characters that tell the story rapidly become strawmen caricatures, and hollow becomes the family conflict between Gene Hackman's Jedediah Tucker Ward and his daughter Maggie, played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Where Hackman's character is a clichéd 60's counterculture throwback, Mastrantonio's is the equally clichéd corporate attorney. The story allows for no subtleties, and the conflict is decided before the first frame is filmed.The film's middle third delves into too many tightly-shot, overwrought emotional introspections, and Mastrantonio looks at times exceedingly uncomfortable in the role of an attorney. One can't help but wonder if the cast overcompensates for what it knows is a contrived story, trying to manufacture interesting conflict where the film's end-game can, minus the details, reasonably be predicted. On its face, the drama between Mastrantonio and Hackman is marginally compelling, but so heavily directed by Michael Apted it makes one wish the characters hadn't been drawn in such a starkly one-dimensional manner so as to allow the viewer the chance to contemplate who holds the moral high ground in their personal life, and, more broadly, in their opposite-ends perspectives in the legal system. As it is, a few scenes of anger and rage, militated by the superfluous introduction of the death of Maggie's mother along the way, merely serve to insist the viewer agree with the film's predetermined conclusions. The result leaves the conflict empty, and the viewer only marginally interested.The courtroom conclusion provides for its own interesting trapdoor resolution, which won't be revealed here, and that alone does provide "Class Action" the kind of end-game pop it desperately needs. The "pop," however, isn't enough to overcome the hard characterizations that force the dramatic point, rather than allow it to form in the heart and mind of the viewer.

Sometimes I'm left with the impression that viewers think all films should be award winning material, as though the goal and worth of a film can be judged by the amount of award nominations it generates and brings home. I disagree, a good film should entertain, and that is what this film does very well. Nice on location sets give the film an authentic and attractive feel. The acting is top notch. The two main overlapping stories, the father & daughter relationship and the legal battle, tie in very nicely. This is a solid film that draws the viewer in and keeps his/her attention until final scene. There are many ways to waste two hours, this film is not one of them.

As a fan of Hackman, Mastrantonio, and courtroom drama, I thought this might be another overlooked chestnut that might repay viewing. Well, I enjoyed the film thoroughly - but it was not really courtroom drama. So if that is what you're looking for, go elsewhere. People are in courtrooms, and there's some cross-examination, but that is not the core of the movie. The core is a story about a father-daughter relationship, and the ups and downs that the relationship can take. Criticized for being 'predictable' or 'smarmy', I found it to be a warm and occasionally humorous take on a plot that may have been presented before, but certainly bore presenting again, and I enjoyed the film very much.Apted's directing is effective, though never innovative. The actors are all good - in fact, it is to their credit that they made simple lines and dialogue so effective. Hackman, of course, as always,is the professional he always is, and in Mastrantonio he has an actress who can take his words and put her own spin on them. Supporting cast is very solid, the music is early James Horner (good, but again nothing brilliant), setting and atmosphere were both average. Overall, not a movie for a guy and his girl to watch, but a great movie for that girl and her father to watch. It would've been a great all-rounder if the drama had been in the court-room...