Woburn residents won't recognize the city in the film A Civil Action

(Even though Hollywood makes a lot of movies "based on actual events," it is very, very rare that the events portrayed on the screen are the same as those in the books, or real events, upon which they are based. This was true in Woburn, too.)

By CHARLES C. RYAN

The Aberjona River in Woburn never looked as good as it does in the movie "A Civil Action."

And that isn't the only thing that isn't true to life in the major film released nationally Friday by a Disney film company.

The film, which hopes to garner some Oscar nominations, is a gripping portrayal of real events which occurred in the city in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Even though personal injury lawyer Jan Schlichtmann didn't win his real life courtroom battle representing eight Woburn families whose children were afflicted with leukemia, he gains a metaphorical victory through the film.

The Beverly Farms resident lost everything in bankruptcy after the 78-day trial ended in a clouded verdict that was later overturned by federal Judge Walter J. Skinner (played by John Lithgow).

Schlichtmann was forced to settle out-of-court with chemical giant W. R. Grace Co. for $8 million, which barely covered his costs and gave a token amount to each family.

His dogged appeal of the case against Beatrice Foods (which the jury had found not liable) depleted everything he had left.

The case ultimately proved too complex for Schlichtmann, for Judge Skinner, and for the American justice system.

The Touchstone Pictures/Paramount film stars John Travolta as Schlichtmann and provides redemption for Schlichtmann, and a moral victory for the Woburn families they never could have gotten in the courts. But to do so, it distorts many of the facts.

Travolta plays Schlichtman as a man obsessed with acquiring wealth, and cynically manipulative in his practice of personal injury law.

The opening scene captures this nicely with a bit of humor as Travolta pushes a wheelchair-bound man down the corridor of a courthouse, musing in an interior monologue about the relative value of various injured victims to a jury.

He ends by concluding that children "have no value." But a white middle-aged male has the most.

The ensuing courtroom scene where he adjusts his crippled witness's position in the wheelchair while the opposing attorney squirms and keeps flashing notes offering a higher settlement is funny and sets the tone for Schlichtmann's character.

Travolta's skilled portrayal as he tackles the case of the eight Woburn families gives Schlichtmann a moral stature and growth that was obscured in real life by his financial failure and the bitterness of some of the family members over the out-of-court settlement.

To this day, Anne Anderson (played subduedly by Kathleen Quinlan), whose son Jimmy died of leukemia, still wants an apology from the responsible parties: W. R. Grace Co., Beatrice Foods, Unifirst Corp., and the John J. Riley Leather Co. (which was bought by Beatrice only a few years before the events portrayed in the film). It's an apology she has never received, as none of the companies has admitted culpability.

There is something very peculiar about seeing events you were intimately involved with over a 16-year period compressed into a two-hour movie.

It's even more disconcerting to see the facts manipulated for dramatic purposes.

For instance, even though the movie is about lawyers and a precedent-setting 78-day trial, there are only a few, very brief scenes from that trial, though a number of the court sidebars are in the film.

The movie doesn't show how Schlichtmann made several crucial errors in the trial, failing to get key evidence into the record and making a major mistake with his expert witness on ground water, Princeton professor George Pinder.

It was Pinder's flawed testimony, and Attorney Jerome Facher's (played mischievously by Robert Duval) ferocious cross-examination of Pinder, which let Beatrice Foods (and the John J. Riley Co.) off the hook. That never comes out in the film.

In the beginning, Judge Skinner divided the trial into three parts: In the first, the families had to prove that the companies polluted the city's drinking water wells; the second part of the trial would have required the families to prove they suffered illnesses as a result of that pollution; and the third part of the trial would have addressed damages.

But in the film, Judge Skinner divides the trial into multiple parts

after all of the technical testimony has been presented -- lending a false weight to the implications in Jonathan Harr's book ("A Civil Action") that Skinner and Facher may have allowed "good old boy" Harvard school ties to influence the decisions made in the case.

The trial ended after the first part when Beatrice (Riley's) was acquitted and the jury found W. R. Grace liable.

But the judge's technically complicated instructions to the jury, and the jury's contradictory findings on the three questions they were given, ultimately caused Judge Skinner to throw out the verdict and order a new trial.

This brought about the out-of-court settlement because neither party wanted to redo the 78-day trial and Schichtmann's law office couldn't -- they were out of money and heavily in debt.

James Gandolfini gives a good portrayal as Al Love. Love was the only W. R. Grace employee to come forward and tell the truth about chemicals dumped on the company's property.

And David Thornton aptly captures the heart-rending loss Richard Aufiero felt when his 3-year-old son Jarrod died in his arms on I-93 as they were rushing him to the hospital.

One major, and unnecessary, distortion of the facts in the film is in one of the closing scenes when all of Schlichtmann's court documents are bundled up and shipped to the EPA (the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) in Washington to be stored in a huge warehouse, a la "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

The film implies that it was Schilchtmann's evidence which brought the EPA into the case and that is dead wrong. The EPA was involved from day one, as was the state's Department of Environmental Quality Engineering.

It was the state and EPA who ordered the barrels buried on W. R. Grace's property to be excavated.

And the Aberjona River never caught fire -- as it does in the film.

Nor was the Aberjona ever as deep, clean, wide or as fast flowing as the river shown on screen (an upper section of the Charles River was used for the film).

Equally crucial, Facher never offered a $20 million out-of court settlement to the families while the lawyers were awaiting the jury's verdict in the first phase of the trial.

If he had, Schlichtmann would have gladly taken the offer.

Facher did, before the trial began, offer $1 million, and implied he might go as high as $8 million, telling Schlichtmann "You don't want me in this trial."

It was good advice and Schlichtmann should have taken it.

The $8 million would have let him pursue a much more successful case against W. R. Grace.

One other key issue which is changed in the movie involves Schlichtmann's motivation for keeping the case alive after he had decided to get rid of it.

Instead of getting a speeding ticket and then exploring the waste sites of two giant corporations, as portrayed in the movie, Schlichtmann was provided a funding source for the trial.

The Rev. Bruce Young, who played a crucial role in real life, but did not make an appearance in the film, told Schlichtmann at that meeting with the families that Tony Roisman, with Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, had agreed to enter the case and provide up to $1 million in funding for the trial.

Schlichtmann immediately changed his mind and decided to keep the case and "sign on," expecting Roisman to handle the actual trial.

For several reasons, however, Roisman couldn't and Schlichtmann ended up handling the court appearance.

There were several lesser variations from reality: Anne Anderson's house is not situated beside the Aberjona River as shown in the film. Her home is situated on higher ground which overlooks Walker's Pond to the west. The Aberjona flows on the east side of the ridge where her home is and is not visible.

And the Aberjona actually opens up into a wide marsh near the location of G and H wells, with only a narrow channel and feeds though a culvert that takes it under Salem Street. There is no bridge from which the wells can be seen, as depicted when Travolta is stopped twice for speeding tickets.

Neither the John J. Riley Co. nor W. R. Grace's Cryovac facility were located on the river, though Riley's polluted Wildwood Conservation Trust land was located along the west bank of the river.

In fairness, Disney couldn't film in Woburn because the John J. Riley Co. had been demolished and new companies have arisen, phoenix-like in its place at the intersection of Salem and Wildwood streets.

Disney couldn't film at the actual well sites either, since former mayor John W. Rabbitt, upset at the constant filming of the well sites by television stations every time a new development took place in the case, had G and H wells torn down in the late 1980s.

Only the Cryovac and Unifirst building are still standing, but Unifirst wasn't mentioned in the film and it moved out of the building several years ago.

The W. R. Grace Cryovac building has been empty since about 1990 and is reportedly for sale, though its cleanup operation is still underway.

Several real life people were compressed into composite characters in the film. Pinder and geologist John Drobinski were combined into one character. Anne Anderson and Donna Robbins, whose son Robby died from leukemia, were also combined into one. And that caused Donna some unnecessary pain.

In one scene Anne's character tells Schlichtmann that she would be sitting at the rear left-hand corner of the courtroom because that's where her son Jimmy said he would be waiting for her in heaven. But it was actually Robby who said that to Donna.

For that reason and others, many of the Woburn residents feel the film is a mixed bag.

On one hand they are relieved to have their story told and the named companies held up to public scrutiny.

But on the other hand the film has caused them all to relive their pain and suffering.

As for other Woburn residents who were not directly involved in the actual events, don't go to the film expecting to see Woburn, because it isn't there.

But a good movie is.

(I grade the movie a "B," good, but not great and the last half hour really drags)