The future doesn't look too promising for young Rudy Baylor. He's sleeping in his car, he's poor, and he hasn't done well enough at Memphis Law School to entertain his frequent fantasies of life in the legal express lane. Poor Rudy.

True, he finally he gets a job, though it hardly qualifies as anything he would speak of in polite legal circles. He takes a position of sorts with one "Bruiser" Stone, a rogue with a law degree who hires innocents off the street and entices them to chase ambulances for a cut of the take. In a none too subtle analogy, "Bruiser" keeps a tank of baby sharks in his office.

But Stone is the subject of an investigation of his own (a little jury tampering and tax evasion), and Rudy escapes with the firm's paralegal Deck Shifflet. They hang out the shingle and proceed to chase their two pathetic cases - defending a battered (but beautiful) young woman, and a demand against an insurance company for its refusal to honour a medical claim on behalf of their client's dying son.

Rudy will find himself pitted against the insurance company's venal lawyer, Leo F. Drummond, whose idea of a good time is grinding the heel of his Bruno Magli loafers into the faces of young lawyers ("welcome to the war," he tells our hero). The judge is a little too friendly with Drummond, but the tide begins to turn when he is replaced by Judge Tyrone Kipler, who plays it by the book. And as Deck says, "there's nothing more thrilling than nailing an insurance company".

There is an exceptional cavalcade of character parts: "Bruiser" Stone, played by an unrecognisable Mickey Rourke with a hoarse voice, who believes in nothing that doesn't have a price; paralegal Deck Shifflet (Danny DeVito), who can't pass the bar exam but knows all about getting clients to sign on the dotted line; the marvellous Dean Stockwell as a crooked judge; Miss Birdie, who wants to leave her estate to a television preacher (who tells viewers he needs a new jet); Roy Scheider as the archetypal corporate CEO who doesn't give a damn for the welfare of his clients.

There is a gritty realism to the movie, with occasional flashes of a Coppola-like meandering direction that highlights the richness of the landscape.

The fight scene in the battered woman's house is brilliantly staged and all too believable.

Damon is a vast improvement on Chris O'Donnell in Grisham's "The Chamber", a similarly disillusioned young lawyer, and Matthew McConaughey in "A Time To Kill".

Are we really to believe that Rudy learns the tricks of the advocacy trade (after a very shaky start) in the space of his first few days in a courtroom?

This is "John Grisham's The Rainmaker" - surely we don't need the name of the author as part of the title? This is a somewhat immodest appeal to the industry that is Grisham.

It is never entirely clear where the romance with the battered wife (Clare Danes) gels with the rest of the story.

The central question posed by this movie? Can a person with a decent heart be a lawyer? This is an obsession with Grisham, who seems to paint every legal career as a stereotype. He has attempted to resolve this question in "The Street Lawyer", but it's getting a bit tiresome. We are here to attest that not all lawyers are sharks - let's name a few decent lawyers…okay, we'll get back to you on that one.

This movie is concerned with a claim against an insurance company in "civil law". This distinguishes it from criminal law, which deals with offences that are punishable by the State.

The court case in the movie concerns a dispute over an insurance contract. This is a type of contract in which the insurance company agrees to pay a person (the insured) a sum of money to compensate for a specified event that takes place.

In the movie a family has faithfully paid the premiums for medical insurance, but a claim for a bone marrow transplant on behalf of their son is refused on the grounds that the proposed treatment is "experimental". When he dies, his lawyers sue for compensation for "wrongful death". They allege that the insurance company brought about the death by a "wrongful" action (not paying for his medical treatment) - this gives rise to a claim for monetary compensation for "damages".

In Australia this type of legal action is covered by legislation e.g. the Wrongs Act in Victoria and the Compensation to Relatives Act in New South Wales. What you neeed to prove is that the death was caused by neglect or inaction by the defendant (the insurance company), and the that deceased would have had a right to sue for that neglect had they been alive.

At first glimpse you'd have to be surprised that Francis Ford Coppola chose to direct and write this movie. But the great director (the maker of this reviewer's all time favourite film "The Godfather") has detoured to commercial byways a few time previously. Think of "Peggy Sue Got Married" and "Jack".

Matt Damon is Rudy Baylor. It wasn't long ago that Matt's career was going nowhere, but he would have to count the last three years as fortunate indeed. First there was the Meg Ryan vehicle "Courage Under Fire", where he co-starred as a distraught army medic in the Gulf War (he lost 40 pounds to play the part). He wrote and appeared in the successful "Good Will Hunting", improbably winning an Academy Award with his best friend Ben Affleck for the original screenplay. Beside his big break in "The Rainmaker", he has really hit the big time as the co-star with Tom Hanks in Steven Spielberg's World War Two epic "Saving Private Ryan". If you looked hard you might have seen him deliver a single line of dialogue in the 1988 movie "Mystic Pizza".

John Voight is the cynical (but oh so successful) lawyer Leo Drummond who represents the insurance company. Voight made his debut in the best movie of the 1960's, the brilliant "Midnight Cowboy". Other significant parts followed: "Deliverance"; "The Odessa File"; "Coming Home" earned an Academy Award; and then an apparent lull. Recently he has returned in a rush of smaller character parts: "Mission Impossible" (does anyone understand that convoluted plot?); and the ridiculous "Anaconda" where he manages to get himself swallowed by a very big snake.

Claire Danes is the tragic Kelly Riker. Danes has been in a number of smaller roles, following her appearance in the latest adaptation of "Little Women". She was the young Anne Bancroft in "How To Make An American Quilt", and in a weird coincidence, Bancroft's granddaughter in "Home For The Holidays". Her best role to date has been in Australian Baz Luhrmann's innovative adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet" opposite Leonardo DiCaprio.

Matt Damon looks like a fresh faced recruit on his first day in boot camp. He is at his best as the bumbling upstart in his inaugural appearance in court. But he otherwise does it well, and it is not too hard to believe that he has absorbed some important lessons by the final credits.

Jon Voight is your classic legal sleaze. He's a mentor of sorts for Rudy, who gets a few fast lessons about the way to get the attention of a jury. Perhaps he overplays it a little, although this is a long way in the right direction after the dramatic turn with a very big snake in "Anaconda". Still, he seems to forcing his hand here, and we find ourselves pining for Joe Buck and the paraplegic Luke Martin of "Coming Home".

Danny DeVito is wonderful as the hustler paralegal Deck. He is an energised ball of chutzpah, never missing an opportunity to hand out his card to anyone in a plaster cast. DeVito is smart enough to play the part with gusto, and you soon share his excitement at the thrill of the chase for a new client. Perhaps it's all a bit passé for DeVito who has been down this road before, but he is far and away the star of the show. He makes us believe that despite his street smarts, Deck has managed to fail the bar exams on six attempts.

This is probably the best of the Grisham movies (perhaps with "The Client"), though we haven't been too impressed with a few of the other efforts.

Although it follows the Grisham blueprint, Coppola makes more of the tragedies that underpin the story (a dying boy, a battered wife) than mere devices; we believe in Rudy's righteous indignation because we are outraged at the callousness of the insurance company. By the end it is clear that any monetary compensation will not wreak revenge for the loss of a child, and we are left with the sad realisation that the corporate juggernaut will roll on regardless.

The gravity is nicely balanced with an occasionally unexpected dark humour, usually supplied by one of the character actors, and there is a certain off-beat irreverence that is reminiscent of "Get Shorty" (another DeVito vehicle) and the novels of Elmore Leonard.