Erin Brockovich (Widescreen)

Anyway, on to "Erin Brockovich". This is without question the best performance I've ever seen from Julia Roberts, but I'm grading on the curve. Her portrayal of Erin Brockovich includes constant potty mouth and an overload of sassy attitude, combined with an extensive wardrobe of slutty attire. Unfortunately, the movie allows for this character to triumph even though she insists on behaving like an uncouth, hypocritical, self-absorbed bigmouth who can't finish a sentence without cursing.

The basic story involves a small rural town in California in which a large number of citizens have contracted life-threatening illnesses from contaminated water, and the class action suit they file against the evil Pacific Gas and Electric. Erin comes across questionable documents in a file she is processing for a law firm (she is not a lawyer, just an office worker), and decides to get to the bottom of it. The story snowballs from there, however the more interesting relationships between Erin and her family, employer, and her boyfriend Harley (oops, I mean George) make up the more watchable parts of the movie.

There was another reviewer here who mentioned that this story has more in common with you average "movie of the week" than anything else, and I agree. Many times the plot is telegraphed to the viewer in that formulaic Hollywood way, in fact I never doubted for a second how this story would turn out.

Albert Finney's character was well done, and to be honest Julia Robert's character was believable as well; I simply did not LIKE Erin BUT I had no problem with her believability as a character. The biker boyfriend... the less said the better. I didn't find him convincing. The relationship between Erin and George WAS believable, however I have a feeling that the "recap" scenes (where the two of them visit one of the plaintiffs following the lawsuit) featuring Erin and George were tacked on in the pursuit of the "feel good" ending. Hey, Marg Helgenberger makes an appearance as one of the townsfolk, and her character is VERY different from the one she plays in CSI. She does a great job; check it out.

The story unravels in a typical manner, and of course every single person involved with PG&E is depicted as arrogant, uncaring, and just plain bad. Big Business = BAD = standard Hollywood scriptwriting. True, a business (or an individual) who contributes to contaminated groundwater is to be held responsible for their actions, and I can make no excuses for the company as they are portrayed here. I always find it difficult to believe that every businessman / corporation in the movies is Evil Incarnate. What the film glosses over is the fact that while PG&E was cited by the California Water Board multiple times to clean up their facilities, it was the GOVERNMENT who did not enforce existing laws properly, allowing PG&E to continue their hazardous practices. The real problem lies in the fact that most utility companies are government-sponsored monopolies, and are essentially exempt from free market factors which would drive your average irresponsible company out of business anyway.

I didn't find this movie very funny as some reviewers have, mostly because the humor was based upon the "shock" value of having Erin rip someone's head off with creative profanity. I'd recommend the first hour of "Full Metal Jacket" for those who think Erin's outbursts are high comedy.

"Erin Brockovich" is watchable, but certainly not award winning material. Julia Roberts makes a fine attempt at a serious dramatic role, yet I suspect that the powers-that-be had more than a hand in weakening a film that had a lot of potential. Julia is made to look just as pretty as she ever does, which detracts from the idea that she wanted to step outside her more typecast roles; "dolling her up" was not a good idea for those wishing to sell Roberts in a serious role.