since director steven zaillian previously wrote the powerful screenplay for 1993's steven spielberg drama " schindler's list " and directed 1993's intelligent " searching for bobby fischer , " his new film , " a civil action , " should most likely be looked upon as an unfortunate misstep in an otherwise prosperous career . 
what doesn't make sense is how such high-profile and superb actors as john travolta , robert duvall , william h . macy , and kathleen quinlan got involved in this project , which is both dull and completely ineffective . 
the film , which involves a small community of children who mysteriously died of leukemia , certainly contains the type of story to be emotionally-charged , but somehow all signs of feeling have been completely removed from the proceedings , leaving us with nothing more than a poorly-done courtroom drama . 
based on a book by jonathan hart , which was consequently based on a true account , " a civil action " is set in 1982 in the town of woburn , mass . , where personal injury lawyer jan schlictmann ( john travolta ) decides to take on the case of eight families who simply want an apology for their children's death from leukemia due to unknown causes . 
jan originally decides to drop the case , but when he stumbles across to corporate giants , grace and beatrice foods , who have plants located near the families' homes , he sees all of the pieces suddenly fall into place : the two companies have been leaking harmful chemicals into the nearby lake which , thus , goes into the city's drinking water . 
suddenly , after hearing about the families' heartbreak and personal stories , he begins to care for them and becomes determined to get to the bottom of the mystery , even though he is warned by his staff accountant ( william h . macy ) that no money is coming in to them , only going out . 
also figuring into the story is jerome facher ( robert duvall ) , beatrice foods' corporate counsel , who finds himself in heated waters when jan will not accept his $20-million offer to settle the case . 
coming from such a talented writer , director , and cast , not to mention one of the most interesting film composers , danny elfman , " a civil action " is an astoundingly empty-headed drama , one that includes an intriguing story and somehow transforms it into an admittedly tiresome and occasionally even boring experience . 
perhaps one of its major problems was that in its attempts to be a relatively uncommercial motion picture , zaillian has misplaced its refreshing unconventional attitude with an absence of magnetism and even meaning . 
watching the film , i couldn't help but notice its similarities with 1997's far , far superior film " the sweet hereafter , " which dealt with a lawyer , played brilliantly by ian holm , investigating a school bus accident that killed a number of children . 
in his attempts to find someone who may have been responsible for the accident , holm interviews the grieving parents , as well as the sole surviving passenger , a teenage girl , which starts to remind him of his own teenage daughter , a young drug-addict who has run away from home . 
not only was the plotting similar to " a civil action , " but it also had the same exact running time of 115 minutes . 
considering this , it is amazing how fulfilling and truthful " a sweet hereafter " was , not only concentrating on the school bus accident , but delving deeply into ian holm's character and his own personal demons , as well as the teenage girl . 
in " a civil action , " however , i have no idea where the running time went , since the film is virtually two hours of nothingness . 
we do not get to know the parents very well , nor any of the main characters . 
through its whole duration , i did not learn one thing__not one thing__about travolta's lawyer character , jan schlictmann , who doesn't appear to have any sort of life or purpose outside of his job . 
every scene is tediously related directly to the premise , and therefore , there was no one for me to care about or root for . 
you've got to work pretty hard , actually , to not get an audience to become involved in the parents' plight , since their children are dead , but that is exactly what " a civil action " does . 
to be honest , i would be fairly hard-pressed to state an aspect of the film that i actually liked . 
aside from one flashback to when a man's young son died on the way to the doctor , i remained unmoved and passive about what was going on in the scenes , and more than once found my mind wandering . 
i could say the performances were good , but who's fooling who ? 
since every character is one-dimensionally written , no one's acting abilities are challenged in any way . 
travolta plays a lawyer well enough , but that's about all he does . 
duvall virtually sleepwalks through his role , apparently only appearing to give one-liners at every chance he gets . 
and what in the world is kathy bates doing in the picture's final scene , as a judge ? 
she appears unbilled , since it is just a cameo , but why did she even agree to do it in the first place ? 
finally , when the conclusion arrived and the end credits began to role , the film left me with another question : what was the point ? 
abruptly ending without any susceptible momentum , where none came before that to begin with , " a civil action " seemed to me , at least , to be an example of how not to make a courtroom drama , and it certainly did not do justice to the very serious subject matter the film deals with . 
