Dark Waters, based on a New York Times magazine article by Nathaniel Rich - 8.5 out of 10

Dark Waters, based on a New York Times magazine article by Nathaniel Rich

8.5 out of 10

This remarkable motion picture has reminded me of Erin Brockovich, for which Julia Roberts has won a well-deserved Academy Award, and A Civil Action https://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2017/09/note-on-civil-action-writer-director.html - with John Travolta in the leading role of a lawyer that takes on a much more resourceful enemy, in a David against Goliath battle, much like what we see in Dark Waters.

Mark Ruffalo, who seems to be a respectable activist in his personal life, outside the movie sets, plays the part of Rob Bilott, a lawyer that used to stand for big corporations – as he would say in a strange confrontation with his client, who is accusing him to be somewhat evil, though by that time the hero will have already crossed to the other side, admitting that he had been working for the ‘bad guys’, but he has a change of heart, perhaps an epiphany, a resurrection that transforms him from an average, actually better than average man of the law into a Role Model, a Superman among lawyers, who does much to change the image of the profession in the eyes of the audiences that would see this movie…

Indeed, the profession of lawyer is among the most unfortunate on many levels, for they have the highest rates of depression, divorce and suicide, in what is definitely a negative career – in the sense that one could not really be positive in some domains as detective, traffic controller, financial analyst and some more – which sounds reasonable if we think they are the target of a multitude of jokes, like this one…

Scientists have decided to stop testing medicine on lab rats and instead work on lawyers and this for three reasons:

1. People get attached to rats

2. There are not enough lab rats

3. There are some things even rats will not do

Rob Bilott receives the outré visit of a some farmers one day and then visits one of them, who lives near a Du Pont facility – there is another phenomenal film about Du Pont, John Du Pont aka marvelous Steve Carell, Foxcatcher - http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/08/note-on-foxcatcher-written-by-max-frye.html - an finds that the man has had over one hundred cattle sick with bizarre diseases, deformities that he can see kept in jars by the owner who has had to suffer many losses and those are due to the waste thrown just near his property…

Furthermore, babies have been born with deformities and they contract serious illnesses, cancer of various organs being the cause of death for some of them and what makes this ever more monstrous is that Du Pont, which used to be – perhaps still is – one of the biggest, most valuable companies in the world, knew about the terrific danger that their products posed from their own studies and those of 3M, another major multinational – which actually sells products that compete with what our firm sells, here, in our land – 3M informing Du Pont of the experiments they had had and the dangers identified…

To begin with, Rob Bilott is cautious, tries to find the reason behind the sickness of the cattle and since he knows one of the executives at Du Pont, vicious Phil Donnelly, he asks for some documents, proofs that whatever happens in the affected area is legal, decent, respecting rules and regulations – by the way, it seems preposterous to find that Du Pont was supposed to regulate itself, by then we have learned recently that Boeing was also the one to look at their planes and see if they are ok, with the result that the now infamous – what is it 787? – Model that crashed near Indonesia and in Ethiopia was a flawed design.

However, when he visits the farmer, there is a serious incident that brings a temporary climax, when one sick bull decides to attack and the owner has to shoot it dead, before it might have killed farmer or/and lawyer, and then when they look further at the case, Donnelly becomes more than abrasive, hostile, abrupt and starts yelling at Bilott at a gathering of the Chemical Association of Ohio, where he shouts ‘fuck, sue me and other expletives’,  causing the public to look in amazement at the two men…

Sarah Barlage Bilott, the wife, aka subdued Anne Hathaway is aghast at what she has seen at the reception, where her spouse has had a clash with such an influential executive, putting in jeopardy their income, the future of the children and so much else, but she would totally support him later, especially when he has a medical breakdown, and speaking with his boss, Tom Terp aka always splendid Tim Robbins, she explains that the boss and the wife are unable to understand what Rob does, but this is because he is so much above, such a role model, dedicated, kind, generous, self-sacrificing saint…well she says none of that, but she does stand behind him and somehow makes Terp see better

Actually the latter would be supportive to an unpredicted extent, this viewer was actually expecting him and the firm to eject the rebel lawyer right from the start, or soon after the prospect of a clash with such a giant would become evident and so daunting…when they start boxing, Du Pont sends a few…tones of documents, to bury their opponent in paper which would take millennia to go through, never mind make use of and then it is clear that they keep changing tactics, agreeing to some mediation, then trying to have all file individual cases, all legal technicalities meant to cover for what they knew was wrong…dead wrong

There are many emotional moments, with photos of kids that have deformities caused apparently by …Teflon, which means that Dark Waters is also educational, the undersigned has heard something about Teflon, that it is not good to let it heat or something, but was in no way aware that it could be deadly, in the long run…