On E List of Movie Reviews
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Erin Brockovich (2000)
Rate:
9
Viewed:
2/25
2/25:
"They're called boobs, Ed."
My rating for Erin Brockovich remains unchanged. At first, I thought I was in serious trouble by
entering Julia Roberts hell, but she got better over time. As a result, Julia Roberts earned the Oscar for Best Actress.
To be honest with you, I wanted to see the film again because of Albert Finney. What a great actor he was,
going from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to this.
It's a good story although I'm often reminded of Silkwood. They aren't the
same, but there are plenty of similarities as these incidents did happen in different states. The former is about
ground water contamination in Hinkley, California, as a result of PG&E using hexavalent chromium on metal pipes
to prevent rust while the latter is about plutonium contamination as a result of working at a nuclear fuel
production facility in Crescent, Oklahoma.
How much of what's shown in the film is true? It turns out to be nearly everything. Even the real Erin
Brockovich called it "98% accurate." The class action lawsuit didn't stop there as it kept dragging on for
the next decade. Simply put, the movie is better when Julia Roberts stops being a bitch with an attitude
and starts gathering facts about what's happening to residents of the town. During this process, Ed Masry
begins to see Erin's worth through how she works with them. By the way, the real lawyer died of
complications from diabetes in 2005 which didn't stop Erin Brockovich's career as she kept going to
take on more environmental cases, achieving success in many of them.
All in all, Erin Brockvich is a tug-of-war between Julia Roberts' performance and the story, and both
finish well by helping each other out.