Film - Dark Waters

I love watching this type of film as it restores my faith in humanity. I was still wondering if this one achieved that goal when I left the cinema though.

Based on relatively recent events, Dark Waters is about a corporate lawyer turned community supporter Rob Billot (Mark Ruffalo). Approached by a farmer, Wilbur Tennant, from his Gran’s home town, he takes the huge DuPont organisation to court over poisoning the water with its waste resulting in hundreds of cases of cancer and deformed births. This affected 70,000 local residents for four decades

Just stop and take that in for a minute.

You wouldn’t have thought a company where all evidence was pointing to them would need to be taken to court. But this is America. You could be clearly guilt but found innocent, (white males) or the opposite (black males). 

The rich pay fines, the poor do time.

190 cows die but DuPont blames the Wilbur Tennant (from a third-generation farming family) for being a bad farmer.

Dark Waters reminds me of one of my favourite films, Erin Brockovich. Like so many recent films about American power/money/corruption/politics [delete as appropriate], it’s a story apt for today. The only irritating part is the over-acting of Mrs Billot (Anne Hathway), a lawyer herself who instead of supporting her husband in doing the Christian thing chastised him for over-reaction and risking his high-paying career.

Many of the characters are based on true life ones including Bucky Baily (pictured) who was born with a birth defect and provided a poignant scene - blink and you miss it.

It’s another in a series of films that for some reason feature John Denver’s Country Road. I’m not sure if they all were based in West Virginia but this one is (Parkersburg, West Virginia) It’s cliched but I never tire of that song.

7½/10 (lost half for the over-acting)