Class Action

Class Action centres on two San Francisco lawyers on opposite sides of a product-liability case. Jedediah Tucker Ward, a veteran civil-rights attorney who has spent his career representing ordinary people against large institutions, finds himself facing his own daughter Maggie, an ambitious corporate lawyer defending an automaker whose station wagon has been linked to fatal accidents. Long estranged from her father, Maggie takes the case partly in hopes of a promotion, and the courtroom conflict becomes personal as the trial proceeds.

Michael Apted directed the film, the eighth of the nineteen features listed in his filmography, following Gorillas in the Mist and preceding Thunderheart. Gene Hackman plays Jedediah and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays Maggie; the cast also includes Colin Friels, Joanna Merlin, Laurence Fishburne and Donald Moffat. Christopher Ames, Carolyn Shelby and Samantha Shad wrote the screenplay, and Scott Kroopf, Ted Field and Robert W. Cort produced the 20th Century Fox and Interscope Communications release.

The film runs 105 minutes. On TMDB it holds a rating of 6.3 out of 10 from 182 votes, a modest response suggesting a mixed reception rather than broad enthusiasm. Its drama comes from the collision between family loyalty and professional duty, staged inside a case about corporate responsibility.