Milo Callaghan and Madison Iseman complement the main cast of this TV adaptation of John Grisham's novel
"What are you willing to do, really willing to do, to be a Rainmaker?"
1997 gave audiences the film adaptation of "The Rainmaker," John Grisham's well-received novel about a young lawyer named Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) who gets in over his head with a case just after graduating from law school. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola and released the same year as Damon's Oscar-winning "Good Will Hunting," "The Rainmaker" cemented Damon's movie star status and adapted the novel for a modern audience.
In 2025, viewers are stepping back into Grisham's gritty legal drama, this time in television form via the USA Network. Playing Rudy this time around, British actor Milo Callaghan infuses the baby-faced law grad character with a scrappy attitude as he is fired from a highfalutin southern law firm, Tinley Britt, where his girlfriend works, just six weeks before they take the bar exam. Having no other job prospects, Rudy defaults to working for an ambulance-chasing firm headed up by Bruiser (Lana Parrilla) and her even scrappier paralegal, Deck (P.J. Byrne).
Bruiser and Tinley Britt's Leo Drummond ("Mad Men" alum John Slattery) often don't see eye to eye, facing each other in court where Bruiser is seen as a foul-mouthed shyster against Drummond's reputation as a courtroom lion. Complicating matters is the new client Rudy brings to Bruiser, the mother of a son who died in a hospital under suspicious circumstances. With Tinley Britt as opposing counsel, Rudy and his girlfriend Sarah (Madison Iseman) are now on opposite sides of a case that could bring national attention to all of their careers.
The term "rainmaker" refers to a lawyer who wins significant cases with substantial financial awards as part of the ruling. Rudy hopes to become such a powerhouse lawyer, but his reckless arrogance and inexperience might hinder those dreams from coming true. For a series and premise that relies on Rudy's behavior to reflect a positive end result for his client, actor Milo Callaghan doesn't believably sell the high stakes of the case.
The first five episodes of "The Rainmaker" available for review create a 1990s feel full of shady dealings and courtroom antics that fail to stand out in a saturated landscape of television legal dramas. However, the case at the center of the action keeps the attention of the viewer as we follow the alleged murderer, Melvin Pritcher (Dan Fogler), outside of the spectacle involving the lawyers handling the case. Pritcher is a naughty nurse with seemingly ill intentions, played to perfection by a menacing Fogler who is more known for his comedic work.
Series creators Michael Seitzman ("Code Black") and Jason Richman ("Stumptown") do a marvelous job of using the recent law school graduates as conduits for viewers to understand complex legal jargon and mediation techniques. The series is at its best when we are introduced to Pritcher and watch in horror as his character is exposed to the outside world. However, the story isn't as fluid or solid in scenes involving Rudy and Sarah, which should evoke emotional resonance that doesn't memorably materialize.
Some of the best scenes in this newly adapted "The Rainmaker" are those that see Bruiser and Drummond go head to head, one-on-one, even when in a restaurant booth, trying to make a deal to settle the case. It's clear these two characters have a history, and it shows on screen when two actors of high caliber like John Slattery and Lana Parrilla enjoy sparring with one another.
A series like this provides room for a character-driven drama that doesn't neglect its audience's intelligence, yet hardly ever adds anything new or intriguing. As the stakes escalate and tension builds between the four main characters (all supposed to be Southern yet no one has a Southern accent), mysteries deepen and more conflicts arise. Pritcher's motives are unclear and his violent nature begins to explode without control, making an already complicated case unravel by the minute.
"The Rainmaker" succeeds in a cable network environment as it refuses to paint any of its characters as purely good or evil. The series strives for a theme of underdogs competing against well-funded high-priced firms with influential attack dogs, but sometimes juggles too many subplots with an inability to weave personal drama with legal suspense. Slattery plays Drummond with poisonous charm while Parrilla's Bruiser is a ball-busting woman of the law, making for two characters worth watching.