''Class Action'' is a 1991 American

legal drama A legal drama is a genre of film and television that generally focuses on narratives regarding legal practice and the justice system. The American Film Institute (AFI) defines "courtroom drama" as a genre of film in which a system of justice play ...

film directed by

Michael Apted Michael David Apted, (10 February 1941 – 7 January 2021) was a British television and film director and producer. Apted began working in television and directed the '' Up'' documentary series (1964–2019). He later directed '' Coal Miner's ...

. Gene Hackman and

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (born November 17, 1958) is an American actress and singer. She made her Broadway debut in the 1980 revival of ''West Side Story'', and went on to appear in the 1983 film '' Scarface'' as Al Pacino's character's sist ...

star; Larry Fishburne,

Colin Friels Colin Friels (born 25 September 1952) is a Scottish-born Australian actor of theatre, TV and film and presenter Early life Friels was born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire, Scotland.Interview with Colin Friels, ''George Negus Tonight'' (ABC Television) ...

Fred Dalton Thompson Freddie Dalton Thompson (August 19, 1942 – November 1, 2015) was an American politician, attorney, lobbyist, columnist, actor, and radio personality. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from Tennessee f ...

, and

Donald Moffat Donald Moffat (26 December 1930 – 20 December 2018) was a British–American actor with a decades-long career in film and stage in the United States. He began his acting career on- and off-Broadway, which included appearances in ''The Wild D ...

are also featured. The film was entered into the

17th Moscow International Film Festival The 17th Moscow International Film Festival was held from 8 to 19 July 1991. The Golden St. George was awarded to the Soviet-German film '' Spotted Dog Running at the Edge of the Sea'' directed by Karen Gevorkian. Jury * Oleg Yankovsky (Soviet ...

Plot

The story is about a lawsuit concerning injuries caused by a defective automobile. The suit takes on a personal dimension because the injured plaintiff's attorney, Jedediah Tucker Ward, discovers that the automobile manufacturer's attorney is his estranged daughter, Maggie Ward. Jedediah Ward is a liberal

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life o ...

lawyer who has based his career on helping people avoid being taken for a ride by the rich and powerful; he's pursued principle at the expense of profit, though he has a bad habit of not following up on his clients after their cases are settled. Jed's daughter, Maggie, has had a bad relationship with her father ever since she discovered that he was cheating on her mother, Estelle, and while she also has made a career in law, she has taken a very different professional route by working for a high-powered corporate law firm and has adopted a self-interested political agenda. Jed is hired to help field a lawsuit against ARGO, a major auto manufacturer, whose Meridian station wagons have a dangerous propensity to explode on impact when the left turn signal light is activated. While his research indicates that he has an all but airtight case against them, the case becomes more complicated for him when he discovers that Maggie is representing the firm he's suing. The auto manufacturer in the film also utilizes a "bean-counting" approach to risk management, whereby the projections of actuaries for probable deaths and injured car-owners is weighed against the cost of re-tooling and re-manufacturing the car without the defect (exploding gas tanks) with the resulting decision to keep the car as is to positively benefit short-term profitability.

Cast

Production notes

The central premise of the film is roughly analogous to the controversy surrounding the

Ford Pinto The Ford Pinto is a subcompact car that was manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company in North America from 1971 until 1980 model years. The Pinto was the first subcompact vehicle produced by Ford in North America. The Pinto was marketed ...

and its fuel tank design. A 1977 article in ''

Mother Jones Mary G. Harris Jones (1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930), known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She h ...

'' alleged Ford was aware of the design flaw, refused to pay for a redesign, and decided it would be cheaper to pay off possible lawsuits. The magazine obtained a cost-benefit analysis that it said Ford had used to compare the cost of repairs (Ford estimated the cost to be $11 per car) against the cost of settlements for deaths, injuries, and vehicle burnouts. The memo in question was actually prepared by Ford in response to a NHTSA request for comment, it reviewed not Ford but the entire new car market and was not used to make product decisions at Ford. The document became known as the ''Ford Pinto Memo''.

Locations

Scenes of the film were shot in the restaurant of the

Beach Chalet The Beach Chalet is a historic two-story Spanish Colonial Revival-style building, located at the far western end of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The building is owned by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department; and the tenants are ...

Ocean Beach, San Francisco Ocean Beach is a beach on the west coast of San Francisco, California, United States, bordering the Pacific Ocean. It is adjacent to Golden Gate Park, the Richmond District, and the Sunset District. The Great Highway runs alongside the beac ...

and show historic 1930s murals of San Francisco life by Lucien Labaudt.

Reception

''Class Action'' opened at #4 in its opening weekend with $4,207,923 and ended with a domestic gross of $24,277,858; a worldwide total of $28,277,918 was made and the film was a moderate box office success. The film received generally positive reviews. It holds a 77% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

from 26 critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, it has a score of 58 out of 100 based on reviews from 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * * * * * *
Interview with Producer Robert Cort and writers Carolyn Shelby and Christopher Ames on the film's 20th anniversary
at Abnormal Use {{DEFAULTSORT:Class Action 1991 films 1990s legal films 1990s thriller drama films American legal drama films American thriller drama films Class action lawsuits American courtroom films 1990s English-language films Films about lawsuits Films directed by Michael Apted Films scored by James Horner Films set in San Francisco Interscope Communications films 20th Century Fox films 1991 drama films Films produced by Scott Kroopf Films about father–daughter relationships 1990s American films