The Rainmaker

Though he's adapting the same story Grisham always tells, that of an ethical, talented and inexperienced attorney taking on and outwitting powerful and corrupt legal opponents, Coppola has infused The Rainmaker with enough humor, character, honest emotion and storytelling style to make it one of the year's most entertaining movies. more

Drawing a parade of colorful performances from a constantly surprising cast, the curiously titled ''John Grisham's 'The Rainmaker' '' is Mr. Coppola's best and sharpest film in years. more

As carefully constructed, handsomely crafted and flavorsomely acted as a top-of-the-line production from Hollywood's classical studio era, Francis Ford Coppola's screen version of John Grisham's The Rainmaker would seem to represent just about all a filmmaker could do with the best-selling author's patented dramatic formulas without subverting them altogether. more

The film delivers old-fashioned star turns and glittering cameos (Jon Voight and Mickey Rourke are especially good, but Danny DeVito, Mary Kay Place, Danny Glover, Virginia Madsen, Roy Scheider, and Dean Stockwell--not to mention old-Hollywood icon Teresa Wright--also provide considerable pleasure). more

A wonderfully quirky cast under Francis Ford Coppola's direction makes this one of the more enjoyable John Grisham movies. more

Coppola, who both wrote and directed this entertaining adaptation, follows the well-thumbed scenario, but with the help of his winning cast he disguises the absence of invention. more

The Rainmaker, unlike most Grisham films, doesn't have to drag a high-paid superstar around and give him all the best lines. DeVito's role is in the fading tradition of the star character actor. more

Francis Ford Coppola has directed the legal drama with his usual keen attention to atmosphere and texture, although his adaptation of John Grisham's bestselling novel leaves out connective material that would have made the tale smoother and savvier. more

The Rainmaker has a mostly plausible story, an engaging young courtroom hero (Matt Damon, Hollywood's new cover boy), a giant insurance company as the perfect adversary and the best supporting cast of any movie this year. more

Coppola again shines his intelligence on this bestseller material, rather than just shoving it through the Hollywood mill unsifted. more

I have hardly ever seen a movie that is as good as the novel it is based upon, so I wasn't expecting this movie to be better than the novel. The story isn't as interesting in this movie, but the cast is great, the entertainment value is excellent, and veteran Director Francis Ford Coppola is behind the camera here. Coppola has directed movies like the epic mob masterpiece The Godfather and plenty of other great movies. This was released a couple of weeks before Matt Damon's huge hit Good Will Hunting, so this is one of his first big roles in a movie. Danny De Vito does a great job in... more

Aug 2010 - It is a nice and powerful story following a young Memphis lawyer. The inexperience of the lawyer and the weird assistant played by Danny Devito make this different from typical courtroom movies and make the lawyer more emotional accessible. Yet the characters are a bit superficial and our view of the matters remain at most sentimental. more

I hate Claire Danes and was excited to see her beat up. Overall, this was your typical legal thriller; not terrible, not awesome either. The best part? Matt Damon! He's totally believeable. I love movies where he does voiceovers. He has such an authoritative, sexy voice. Not that he's my favorite actor and I'm biased or anything. Well, if I were John Grisham, I'd be stoked that FFC directed my mediocre book. more