The Devil Has a Name

This is set mostly (and filmed) in California where there is apparently some history of oil companies allowing their polluted water to reside in large ponds without pond liners. As a result some of the toxic chemicals infiltrate into the groundwater causing both health problems and agricultural problems.

In this fictional story a farmer's wife has died, now he has fruit trees starting to die, is approached to sell rights for a few thousand dollars as an attempt to cover up what is really happening. Eventually the farmer hires a top lawyer to fight for his rights. Meanwhile the big boss in Houston has his goon threaten the farmer and promises to take everything he has if he doesn't settle out of court.

All that could have the makings of an interesting movie, and much of it is interesting, but overall I was disappointed. The movie is too uneven and many things that happen just don't make sense within the arc of the story. My wife abandoned it after about 30 minutes. There are a couple of twists of sorts at the end but overall not a particularly good movie.

I see that the writer has no prior experience as a script writer and that seems to be part of the problem. It is relatively easy to come up with a good concept, however not so easy to write a superior script to support it.

On DVD from my public library.