Class Action (1991 film)
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| Class Action | |
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| Directed by | Michael Apted |
| Produced by | Robert W. Cort Ted Field Scott Kroopf |
| Written by | Carolyn Shelby Christopher Ames Samantha Shad |
| Starring | Gene Hackman Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio |
| Cinematography | Conrad L. Hall |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation |
| Release date(s) | 1991 |
| Running time | 110min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Class Action is a 1991 film directed by Michael Apted. Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio star. Fred Dalton Thompson is also featured.
Tagline: A father and a daughter, divided by a case, endangered by the truth.
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 (Hackman) is the father of the automobile manufacturer's attorney (Mastrantonio). The central premise of the film is roughly analogous to the controversy surrounding the Ford Pinto.
The movie is sometimes used in law school professional responsibility classes to teach future lawyers about what not to do. For example, it is very rare that a parent and child are allowed to represent opposing sides in litigation. The "bury the smoking gun" technique seen in the movie is highly unethical.
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.
The film makes remarks concerning challenges brought about by "dumping" by Japanese car makers (temporarily selling below cost to grab market share, then raising prices exhorbitantly after driving competition out of business), and the increased need to cut costs to keep pace with Asian car makers (Korea, Japan, China, etc.) that don't pay anywhere near the union wages of Detroit's auto workers.
Many flaws exist in the film's presentation of legal practice, especially the trial scene's violations of the Federal Rules of Evidence.
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