Dark Waters; entertaining, rage inducing drama

Mon, Mar 09, 2020

As a fan of previous little guy versus behemoth law films such as Erin Brockovich or anger filling plots like In the Name of the Father, I just had to go and see Dark Waters in the cinema and I was not disappointed. Dark Waters tell us the story behind Cincinnati corporate lawyer Rob Bilott's (Mark Ruffalo) 20 year crusade against chemical company DuPont's unregulated misuse of a chemical compound known as 'C8' which causes illness, cancer, and death in creatures which consume it.

We are introduced to Bilott as he is being promoted from associate to partner at corporate law firm Taft. (Taft Stettinius & Hollister is the full name but is never referred to as this), a firm who has built its success on defending major corporations. However, Bilott's path is about to change when West Virginian farmer Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp) marches into the office with videos of his dying cows which he believes have been poisoned by a nearby DuPont landfill. After being encouraged by his grandmother to visit the Tennant farm, Bilott sees the devastation caused and in a second visit, with a mentally ill cow charging him, he agrees to represent Tennant.

The film is based on a 2016 New York Times article by Nathaniel Rich which may explain why it comes across as more like a piece of journalistic work where the emphasis is on the disseminating of the shocking cover up by DuPont into its workers’ illnesses and complications from working at its plant in Parkersburg, rather than a movie solely for viewer pleasure. Dark Waters has been put into the genre of docudrama but realistically it should probably have been made as a documentary as its plot fails to really ignite with few pulse pounding moments. For me, the enjoyment came from learning about what really went on in Parkersburg and how these chemicals are in our everyday lives. Did you know Teflon in which most frying pans were coated was poisonous to humans? I didn’t.