Bruiser Stone News Today

Rudy Baylor, the hero of "The Rainmaker,'' works the other end of the scale from the legal superpowers in most of John Grisham's stories. He's a poor kid who has scraped through law school by the skin of his teeth, is living in his car as the film begins and signs on with a firm where most of the work is done by a paralegal, and the boss wears the kinds of cuff links you can get rid of in a hurry at a pawn shop.

Advertisement The Rainmaker (1997) “I like to spend my days in court,” Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon), a straight-arrow, aw-shucks lawyer, tells another character in the John Grisham adaptation The Rainmaker. He’s not exactly lying—Rudy does his best not to lie, despite or maybe because of his awareness of how his profession is regarded—but it’s a somewhat misleading self-characterization nonetheless. Rudy has just graduated from law school, has yet to pass the bar exam, and is barely sc...