ingredients :
neophyte lawyer , legal situations , corrupt insurance company , synopsis : rudy baylor ( matt damon ) is an ethical kid fresh out of law school who must juggle three legal situations at the same time .
rudy 's girlfriend is attacked by her violent husband ; rudy 's elderly landlady wants to arrange her will so that her children are excluded , and ; the family of rudy 's friend with leukemia is suing the corrupt insurance company that would n't pay for a bone marrow transplant .
rudy is new to being a lawyer and is thoroughly outgunned , but luckily he is aided by a sleazy ambulance chaser ( danny devito ) who has failed the bar exam six times as well as by the kindly presiding judge ( danny glover ) .
jon voight plays leo
f .
drummond , the intimidating and arrogant leader of the all - powerful insurance company 's team of lawyers who will do anything to oppose justice .
will rudy defeat leo ?
will he enjoy being a lawyer ?
opinion :
the good news is that this movie has a happy ending , and it features a guy trying to do the right thing .
director francis ford coppola does this film a little differently than the stereotypical law movie .
in the typical lawyer movie there 's one big case and the movie focuses on solving it , and somewhere along the line surprise witnesses and motives turn up before the good guy wins ( after lots of gripping courtroom drama ) .
however , coppola 's movie is deliberately more low key . ' the rainmaker ' plays out like a personality sketch of young rudy as he gets emotionally involved with and tries to save various little quirky side characters .
in the background rudy 's voice narrates his feelings and makes half - cynical jokes about the legal profession in general .
two factors combine to make this movie less heavy than it can be .
first , rudy 's time is split juggling three cases , rather than concentrating on a single high - stakes case .
also , rudy 's use of voice narration in place of acting makes the film lose some of its dramatic edge .
the end result is an entertaining low key law movie where the good guys win , and rudy narrates his way into coming of age .
an entertaining low key law movie the good news is