"The Rainmaker" in question is a young, naive lawyer (the same freshfaced idealistic character we find in all Grisham's novels). Rudy has clawed his way from a bad home where his father beat him, to become a lawyer. When we meet him he has just finished law school but is so debt-ridden that he has to find a job and quick.
Enter Mickey Rourke to the rescue, a lawyer who puts every other representation of sleeze to shame. Mickey insists his lawyers generate income, so Rudy has to go find an untapped raincloud to dance for so that he will be showered thick and fast with money.
Rudy's first coach in the practical points of law is Danny de Vito, who also works for Rourke. De Vito demonstrates the fine art of ambulance chasing, but quicly becomes a valuable asset when Rudy's raincloud whips up a lot more thunder and lightning than the young pup was expecting.
The raincloud that hangs over the film is the case of Donny, a poor young man dying of leukemia. His insurance company had refused to pay for the treatment that would have saved his life, and so, even though it's too late to restore Donny's health, his mother intends to sue to help other victims of the disease.
The film is littered with well known faces that pop up like candy at regular intervals throughout the trial and its surrounds, adding a certain element of surprize around each corner, especially since there are no opening credits to pre-empt who we're going to see.
Behind the camera, Michael Douglas is the producer and Francis Ford Coppola directs and so the overall product is polished and professional, but maybe a tad overdone.
Coppola gives us a very slick telling of the story such that you comfortably flow along in the narrative wash, but the characters seem rather glib and reliant on stereotypes rather than portraying real people.
Mickey Rourke and Jon Voigt's portrayal of lawyers, for example, are both most entertaining, but so overdone they lack conviction. Rourke couldn't be any more shady if he was a Colombian drug lord, and if Voigt was any more pompous he would be in danger of actually blowing up.
Danny de Vito claims he was looking forward to working with Coppola, picturing them making pasta together. Unfortunately, however, the great director of the Godfather was on a diet, and de Vito had to eat carrots. Maybe therein lies the problem. The Rainmaker is The Godfather on a diet. It looks good, it's well done, but it just doesn't have the passion.