It's a shame the filmmakers were not completely honest

Rating: Null/10 (31 March 2000)

"Erin Brockovich" certainly earns its keep as an entertaining - if somewhat vulgar - retelling of a David vs. Goliath legal story. I'm sure everybody's familiar enough with the plot that I'll skip the summary.
My problem with this film is that it lacks the appropriate epilogue. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a report on Chromium 6 that completely and unequivocally debunks the notion that the chemical was responsible for ANY of those illnesses in Hinkley. Chromium 6 has certainly been linked to 2 types of cancer - but *zero* of the Hinkley plaintiffs suffered from these types of cancer. Unfortunately, the report was issued after the $333 million settlement between the citizens and PG&E.
So what this movie basically exhibits is a greedy bunch of ersatz victims, led by Erin "The world crapped on my doorstep" Brockovich, who succeeds in putting $130 million into the coffers of a law firm, $2 million into her own pockets, and an average of only $300,000 in the pockets of the supposed victims. All of this under faulty scientific and medical conclusions.
PG&E and their operating activities were not at all to blame for whatever ailments afflicted the citizens of Hinkley, CA. But what does that matter? PG&E has billions of dollars and the citizens were poor and sick.
But, in this viewer's opinion, each and every one of those people are only modern day thieves - particularly Brockovich and Masry.
"Erin Brockovich" succeeds only in celebrating a modern day culture where people deflect the responsibility for their own lives to other parties (particularly ones with deep pockets). It's a plague of our society that this film not only displays, but champions.
2 out of 10 for sheer dishonesty.