Class Action

A pair of lawyers must balance their professional principles (such as they are) against family loyalties in this courtroom drama. Jedediah Ward (Gene Hackman) is a leftist lawyer who has based his career on helping people avoid being taken for a ride by the rich and powerful; he's pursued principle at the expense of profit, though he has a bad habit of not following up on his clients after their cases are settled. Jed's daughter, Maggie (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), has had a bad relationship with her father ever since she discovered that he was cheating on her mother, and while she also has made a career in law, she has taken a very different professional route by working for a high-powered corporate law firm and has adopted a conservative political agenda. Jed is hired to help field a lawsuit against a major auto manufacturer whose station wagons have a dangerous propensity to explode on impact, but while his research indicates he has an all but airtight case against them, the case becomes more complicated for him when he discovers that Maggie is representing the firm he's suing. — Mark Deming

My Comments: Stay away from this one unless you are totally drunk and have run out of Oprah tapes. This is some of the cheesiest writing I've ever seen. And so contrived. If they had included just one more scene to establish that the daughter didn't get along with the father, I was going to throw the remote at the screen. And the end...it's classic.

"I love you dad... You know I made a promise to mom once, that we would dance".

And lo and behold, guess what they do next? How Gene Hackman kept a straight face, I'll never know.