The Rainmaker

The Rainmaker is a 1997 movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola starring Matt Damon, Jon Voight, Danny de Vito, Danny Glover. It is based on a John Grisham novel of the same. As Grisham is known for his legal novels, this is a legal thriller.

Matt is a new lawyer and his first ever case is against an insurance company for wrongful denial of a medical insurance claim against a patient having leukemia. Settlement is offered but the young lawyer deems it fit to fight it in the court. While the case is going on, the patient dies, so it becomes a wrongful death claim. The patient would have been saved had the insurance company not denied the claim. He wanted bone marrow transplant which was a standard practice in such diseases but for lack of money the patient dies.

The jury decides the case in favour of the patient and awards 50 million dollars in punitive damages. The CEO of the insurance company is arrested trying to flee the company. The insurance company files for bankruptcy which means that the money is gone. Nobody will get anything.

While some aspects of the legal practice in the US can be said to be unethical, if you get a good judge and jury, punitive damages can be had in the verdict. Unfortunately in India law of tort is a farce as punitive damages are never awarded in such wrongful death or similar such cases.

Coppola has kept the interest alive in the movie. Matt Damon has done a good role and so have the others. 

The Informant

The Informant - a 2009 movie made by Steven Soderbergh based on a true story of a whistleblower gone wrong. Mark Whitacre is a senior executive in an American company ADM. He brings a sabotage story to his senior's attention but is forced to co-operate with the FBI tracking this sabotage story. From there the story unravels from one lie to another. He conducts a secret wire tapping investigation with the FBI against the company officials for price fixing cartel with their foreign competitors. While that results in a FBI raid for the officials it becomes a downhill for Mark thereafter as he is then shown as being involved in an embezzlement and kickback from the company. From there onwards Mark just blows over from one lie to another, incident of FBI official hitting him with a briefcase, his kidnap story. There is also another false story of him losing both his parents in an automobile accident while he was merely 6 and then being adopted by a rich guy. Later on it is shown that he might possibly be suffering from bipolar disorder. The case reaches the judiciary which then indicts him for fraud and embezzlement and sentences him to 9 years, despite his bipolar troubles. Matt Damon has done a good role, though his wig changes colour in almost each scene. The female interest in the movie is played by Melanie Lynskey a New Zealand actress, she plays her part noticeably well. In the end she also realises the truth and tells Mark to stop it.