MOVIE REVIEWS : Class Cast in ‘Class Action’ Court Drama

Maggie Ward (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), a young legal whippet, precise and sharp as her Armani suit, is having a little trouble making herself heard in the San Francisco courtroom where she’s defending big money interests. That’s because next door, the great, fire-eating Jedediah Tucker Ward (Gene Hackman), lifelong defender of the underdog, is well into his summation and if he hasn’t yet done a handstand on the jury railing, it may happen any minute now.

That’s “Class Action’s” smart, engaging set-up--two very different views of the law and of life by the ultra-competitive Wards, who are also father and daughter.

“Class Action” (citywide) is good, chewy entertainment, part courtroom pyrotechnics, part Machiavellian legal maneuvers. A class-action suit, reminiscent of the Pinto fracas, brings Mastrantonio’s posh corporate law firm in on the side of Argo Motors and Hackman in for Argo-drivers, whose cars have blown up when they were hit from behind. Where “Class Action” gets its edge over any solid episode of “L.A. Law” is in its suggestion that both “good” and “bad” law firms sometimes shave the letter of the law in their zeal to win and that the right lies somewhere in between.

Fine courtroom dramas have a mesmerizing quality, but they’re not foolproof: The writing must be dramatic yet clear enough so that even the slowest ones of us in the back row understand every point. The director has to overcome the possible claustrophobia of one set. It’s the actors who generally have a field day.

They certainly do here. Under Michael Apted’s warm and meticulous direction, Hackman and Mastrantonio give beautifully matched performances as the bitterly wrangling Wards, as does Joanna Merlin in the smaller role of Estelle Ward, their tenacious, forgiving wife/mother.

To be right up there with Hackman, giving as good as you get, can’t be as easy as Mastrantonio makes it seem, any more than it was easy for her to hold her ground as steadily as she did at an even earlier age with Paul Newman in “The Color of Money.” Together, the roles are virtually an actress’ graduation exercises. Could it now be considered that Mastrantonio has proved everything she needs to and can have a shot at the A-list roles--the ones that call for beauty with a little something going on behind the eyes?

Hackman’s Jedediah Ward is from the old school of activist lawyers; he’s San Francisco’s William Kunstler or Leonard Weinglass, who’s worn off miles of shoe leather in ‘60s marches and won himself a scrappy, enduring reputation in the process. There’s probably still a phone booth or two across America with the scribbled message: “Huddled masses--need help? Call Jedediah Ward.”

If the screenplay, by Carolyn Shelby & Christopher Ames and Samantha Shad, gets a bit purple in its personal drama, it’s excellent at suggesting how power and casual sexual liaisons were the perks of ‘60s activism at Hackman’s level. It’s something that Hackman’s personal aura only confirms.

It’s not the melodrama of the law case, however, but the film’s deeper level that gives the film its lasting after-images.

These moments concern:

A daughter still bitter on her mother’s behalf for her father’s absences and infidelities.

The hint that pure rebellion has led her to a law firm the philosophical opposite of her father’s--a father not immune to his daughter’s accusations but not used to being crossed in any way, either.

And a wife finally at peace with the choice she has made in her marriage, yet unable to persuade a feistier generation of the virtue in compromise.

Beginning with the charismatic Larry Fishburne as Hackman’s staunch law partner, every member of Apted’s cast contributes to the film’s sense of rightness, with Jan Rubes’ pensioned-off Argo engineer and Matt Clark’s no-nonsense judge especially noteworthy. On the technical side, there is Conrad Hall’s warm, evocative camera work, James Horner’s notably discreet and effective music and the exceptional production designs of Todd Hallowell. (The film is rated R for language and adult subject matter.)

Someone here knows the philosophical shades of difference between Hackman’s Craftsman-style shingle house in Berkeley (the lair of the old bohemian) and a Georgian mansion in Atherton (the bastion of old money). In a beachfront cafe, they’ve even found some grand old WPA-period murals by Lucien Lebaudt and used them as the perfect visual complement to the Wards’ old-line liberalism. And if the film’s final scene turns uncharacteristically mawkish, you can simply look away at these murals and cut the cloying feeling in a second.

‘CLASS ACTION’

Gene Hackman: Jedediah Tucker Ward

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio: Maggie Ward

Joanna Merlin: Estelle Ward

Larry Fishburne: Nick Holbrook

Colin Friels: Michael Grazier

Donald Moffat: Quinn

Jan Rubes: Pavel

Matt Clark: Judge Symes

A 20th Century Fox release. Producers Ted Field, Scott Kroopf, Robert W. Cort. Screenplay Carolyn Shelby & Christopher Ames and Samantha Shad. Co-producers Shelby, Ames. Camera Conrad L. Hall. Production design Todd Hallowell. Editor Ian Crafford. Music James Horner. Costumes Rita Ryack. Art director Mark Billerman, set decorator Dan May. Sound Michael Evje. Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (for language and adult subject matter).