A CIVIL ACTION (M)
Director: Steven Zaillian
Bug rating: Three and a half out of five

WHAT makes the United States the great society it is today is its tolerance of movies that depict how totally rotten it is.
And Hollywood has pumped out thousands of such movies over the years.
While many have dealt with the moral bankruptcy of the corporate world, the ones this reviewer particularly likes are those depicting just how rotten the US legal system is.
Movies about corrupt lawmakers - from parish pump politicians to White House incumbents.
Movies about corrupt law enforcers - from the lowest uniformed beat officer to the commissioner's office.
And, of course, movies about corrupt law practitioners.
Solid, reassuring courtroom dramas that depict how the big law firms especially abuse a system gridlocked by greed and self interest; a system that has long since moved out of the reach of the common man or woman seeking justice.
A Civil Action is a worthy addition to this latest category.
It's based on a true story about how a group of grieving townsfolk seeking justice over a contaminated town water supply that has killed their children get well and truly done over by a mixture of corporate coverups and compromises forced on a court system choked by exorbitant costs.
So why was A Civil Action made? Presumably because it's one of those one-in-a-million cases where the little people eventually get some justice, if not all they deserve.
Served by some wonderfully stark photography by Conrad Hall and a sound central performance by John Travolta as the ambulance chasing lawyer who goes in to bat for the townsfolk for all the wrong reasons, A Civil Action serves its purpose by stressing over and over and over again how nigh on impossible it must be for a person of limited financial resources to get justice in the American system. It's probably no different here.
As Travolta's character Jan Schlichtmann muses during the film, the US legal system is based on a battle between two sides until one comes to its senses - and loses. Preferably before the case ever goes to trial.
Robert Duvall as the shrewd Columbo-styled lawyer for one of the big corporate defenders and William H Macy as the worried bean counter for Schlichtmann's firm help round out an absorbing movie about self-centred lawyers staring each other down, waiting for the other to blink and largely oblivious to the plight of their clients.

- Don Gordon-Brown

Forces of Nature (PG)
Director: Bronwen Hughes
Bug rating: Three out of five

Your humble fillum critic must be going soft in his old age.
I've reached this conclusion - not because of the ever-increasing amount of literature on viagra that is mysteriously finding its way onto my bedside table in recent months - but because Forces of Nature turned out, unexpectedly, to be quite enjoyable entertainment.
Even the syruppy Hollywood ending for which screenwriter Marc Lawrence should be taken out and shot could not spoil what's basically a solid feel-good romantic comedy which has stolen generously from Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
Ben Affleck (Ben) takes Steve Martin's role as a harmless, average bloke just trying to get home to his wife - or in this case, wife to be. Sandra Bullock (Sarah) reprises the John Candy character, only this time without tits.
A series of air, train and road disasters find this odd couple flaring up at each other until they are forced to share a motel bedroom where heart-to-heart monologues deliver some biting home truths. Sounds familiar? They're not FLUFFY pillows!
Planes, Trains and Automobiles ended just about how it should have; Forces of Nature's ending is the absolute pits.

- Don Gordon-Brown

American History X (MA)
Director: Tony Kaye (allegedly)
Bug rating: Four out of five

Can anyone out there in Bugland speak Italian?
You can? Good. Would you mind translating the following and sending it by email ASAP? Ta. Much appreciated.

Bongiorno, Roberto Benigni,
Please jump up and down on your sofa for the next three minutes, waving your hands about like a windmill on speed. Then, kindly leap across your coffee table, just like Charlie Chaplin, and stand agitatedly by your mantelpiece. Then take down the Best Actor Oscar residing there, hug it to death as you lapse into jangled English while throwing kisses and declaring your desire to make love in the fields with all mankind. Then, please, if you'd be ever so kind, send the Oscar by whatever the Italian equivalent of Express Post is to Edward Norton, care of Turman-Morrissey Company and New Line Cinema, Time Warner, New York. He was robbed.

Thanking you in anticipation, etc etc.

p.s. if it's any solace, that scene you wrote where, to protect your son, you translate the German POW camp guard's warnings into a fantasy story of a competition to win a tank must rank as one of the warmest, funniest scenes in the history of cinema. Please keep the Best Foreign Film Oscar as a token of our appreciation.

- Don Gordon-Brown