Welcome back to Movie Recap. Today I'm gonna show you a 2019 American legal thriller film called,
Dark Waters. Spoilers ahead. Sit back, relax and enjoy the video.
The movie starts in 1975 in Parkersburg, West Virginia, in a dark place wherein three
people are inside a car, trying to get into the secluded area of a creek. When they start to swim,
a guard confronts them and commands them to go away. This is a real-life story.
In 1998 in Cincinnati, Ohio, there was a meeting of a group of lawyers under the company of Taft,
Stettinius, & Hollister, and one of those lawyers was Robert Bilott. When suddenly,
a guy called Wilbur Earl Tennant comes into the lobby with another guy with him; they are carrying
two boxes. They ask the front desk for Rob. So in the middle of the meeting, Kathleen calls
Rob to go outside and meet the two guys, so Rob goes out and meets them. Wilbur explains that he
needs Rob's help because of the things happening on his farm back in Parkersburg; Rob denies them
at first, but Earl says he knows his grandmother. He brought the tapes to him to watch, and he left.
When Rob is about to go home, he calls his grandmother on a nearby payphone first,
but no one answers. He goes home to take care of his son and wife. The next day, he spontaneously
goes to Parkersburg to meet his grandmother and look at Earl's case. Rob goes to Earl's farm,
and he sees everything. Earl shows him where he buried his dead 190 cows, and he gets him home to
show the cow's body parts, where he explains that some chemicals are ruining his farm.
Rob goes home and takes care of his son again. The next day,
he goes to a chemical alliance event where he meets the owner of the DuPont plantation named,
Phil Donnelly. They talk for a while about the issue of Mr. Tennant. Phil felt comfortable
around Rob at first. He was friendly to him and accommodating. Phil also gives what Rob wants,
explaining their plantation, chemicals, and company. So Phil willingly gives it to him.
The following day, when Rob gets the report and a bunch of papers, he goes back to Earl and explains
that the problem why his cows are dying is because of herd management and a couple of other issues.
Earl gets mad because he knows that's not true. So Earl takes Rob to the Washington Works,
another plantation near their house, and shows him the chemicals they are producing that are
killing his animals. Rob goes back to the office and explains the case to Tom Terp, Rob's boss.
1999, one year after the Tennant case, Rob is still searching for the details,
looking at every possible way that he might oversee. He gets to a word called PFOA,
which he struggles to find its meaning. He searches in every
dictionary and asks his colleagues what its meaning is, but no one can answer.
Rob goes to another Ohio Chemical Alliance. He brings his wife and meets others as well.
He talks to Phil and asks about the details sent to him; until Ron confronts Phil that
he will sue him, Phil gets mad and starts to curse at Rob. Everyone is looking at them.
Tom gets mad at Rob at first because he is running against a big, powerful company.
But Rob calls another colleague to finalize the complaint against DuPont in Wood County.
After that, Rob receives tons of boxes that he will dig into. On the other hand,
Earl's life gets complicated when they go into a diner, and everyone seems mad at them.
Furthermore, Rob is asking another colleague of his about the PFOA. But this guy explains
every science behind it; it's also called PFOS in the right term; he elaborates on all
the effects of this chemical on the environment and every little detail that Rob needs to know.
In the year 2000, two years after the Tennant case. Earl and his family go to a local church
when they notice that everyone is looking at them which makes them uncomfortable.
On the other side, Rob is staring at the window, looking after his son, when someone
calls him and tells him about the lab result; telling that fluorocarbon is the chemical that
causes blackness in the teeth. Rob remembers that the decaying teeth of Earl's dead cow is black.
So he stands up and realizes that the poison is in their water.
Back in Earl, he goes to a clinic for a check-up with his wife,
because of his non-stop coughing for a year already. When they get home,
Earl realizes that their house has been raided, lots of their things are messy,
and his evidence is being taken. He hears a rumbling sound from above and when he goes out,
he sees a helicopter roaming around their house. Luckily, they didn't do anything to him.
With Rob, he spends his time searching all throughout the endless boxes that he has.
He looks for every detail in every paper. He's studying every little thing.
When Rob gets home, his wife, Sarah wakes up in the middle of the night. She is scared when
only to find out that her husband is tearing up their whole house, kitchen, living, and almost
every area. Sarah screams out of anger because she can't understand what's happening anymore.
But Rob explains to her first, that DuPont is making a chemical called PFOA that is
renamed as C8, which they are using for their main product, Teflon, a cookware pan. Rob explains the
whole history of DuPont and why they are doing what they are doing. DuPont's chemical is very
dangerous and causes people's sickness, cancers to be specific, and unfortunately, this chemical
is already in every living and nonliving thing in this world, 99% of humans have it in their bodies.
Sarah gives birth, and the first thing that Rob checks is his formation because
he might be deformed, like the kid of Sue, who's a former employee of DuPont
who got exposed to the chemicals that caused her son to be deformed.
His name is Bucky. Rob explains this case as well to Phil and Earl.
When Earl and Rob meet again, Earl reveals that it's too late because he and his family
have already gotten cancer. Before he goes, he sends lots of memos to
different emails to tell what is DuPont's secret. Rob comes home with a broken heart,
and he breaks down with his wife, Earl's condition makes it worse. But the thing
that he knows is that all of the news on every TV station is all about DuPont's dark secret.
Back in Parkersburg, there are another two victims of DuPont: Joe and Darlene Kiger. Rob
and his team go to their house to hear what is their story because they can use it as another
complaint against the company. According to the Kigers, they have been working in DuPont
as well and got affected by their chemicals. Darlene's first husband died because he got
sick from the chemical, and she also had to go under an emergency hysterectomy. Darlene
remembered everything and put all the pieces together, she had been wondering why DuPont was
concerned about their drinking water before, and workers in the DuPont plant got the "Teflon flu."
After hearing this story, Rob drives home with his family, and he gets mad in the middle of
the road. He is frustrated about everything he has heard,it breaks his heart until minutes later when
Sarah finds a medical brochure in Rob's car that they can use as another evidence to fight DuPont.
Rob goes to the office and explains the medical continuation that DuPont provides,
all of his co-workers are listening to him until one of his colleagues, James gets pissed;
he complains that this kind of case is not their company's specialty;
they have been wasting their time in one case, to prove that everything is nonsense about DuPont.
James insists on taking a vote if they will continue the case. But their boss Tom gets mad
and says that he is the one holding that meeting and James doesn't have the right to decide on
what will happen. Tom also defends Rob because of the loads of time he spent studying the case
and putting all of the effort that he has left. In the end, they continue the meeting and the case.
In 2002 it was the start of the first hearing. Earl is sitting in a wheelchair
full of weakness. He is pale and can barely talk. Rob sees Earl and his wife
in the middle of the hallway, and Rob assures him that he will do anything to win the case.
The hearing starts, and the case against DuPont is revealed by the lawyers led by Rob.
Rob explains everything from scratch and describes how hazardous DuPont's materials and chemicals
are. Against them, DuPont gets a scientist named Dr. Kimball to contradict all of what Rob and his
colleagues say. When the hearing ended, there was a lot of media outside, and the case was
widely popular across the globe; everything about DuPont's secret gets a revelation.
In 2003, the DuPont case went global. Nobody uses Teflon materials anymore,
and all the indications are put outside the media. Their reputation is destroyed.
In Parkersburg, Joe and Darlene wake up in the middle of the night because their neighbor's
house is on fire. Joe immediately goes to the rescue and calls the firefighters. When one of
the firefighters is interviewing them, he asks their names, and when he finds out that they are
the Kigers, he explains that maybe the fire was on purpose, but they only got the wrong house.
2004, Rob is watching a television home shopping program that uses Teflon to contradict the cases
against them. He turns off the TV and goes to the office. He interviews a man named Charles
O. Holliday Jr., the Chief Executive Officer of DuPont. Rob interviews him and asks him direct
questions about the chemicals, the history, and their secret. It was being recorded.
There's a tension that gets heated. But before Charles finally leaves,
Rob shows him a picture of Bucky, the product of their mismanagement and their chemicals.
Rob goes to the parking lot and starts to feel weak again; his body is shaking,
specifically his hands. He briskly walks towards his car and sees a man standing afar;
he gets scared and gets inside his car; Rob refuses to turn on the car at first because he
thinks he might get blown up. He starts the car, and he leaves. He goes to a meeting with other
men about medical monitoring because they need data to prove their point about the DuPont case.
In 2005, surprisingly, many people helped them;
they started doing community blood tests for free in many areas of America to get some data.
When Christmas comes, a friend calls Rob and gets him the news that they finally have enough
people to get data because 69,000 people got tested. Rob is so happy and tells his family.
2009 comes, and Earl dies; Rob and his family attend his funeral. When the funeral ends,
Rob brings his family to a local diner, when a man comes toward him and introduces himself
as Dale Lamb's brother, another guy who gets testicular cancer. The strange man is crying and
almost blaming Rob because it seems that nothing is happening after they get their blood tested.
After the man left, Sarah said that they needed to go home, and as they were driving along the
streets, people were looking bad at them, telling by their eyes that the blood test was useless.
Rob gets home and starts to call the hospital,
but the person on the phone explains that they are having a hard time because it's
the first ever massive group of people to get their blood tested in history.
She also explains that it's not easy because they have to track each individual's medical history.
In 2010, when Rob is at home eating breakfast with his family, Sarah sends his boys to
school when Rob opens up and asks if they can still afford to send them to catholic school.
Sarah gets frustrated at Rob because they are short and broke because of the case. She explains
that Rob is not getting any other cases, except he's been working on the same thing for years now.
In 2011, Rob talked to Tom and still complains about the Washington Works, why they are still
operating, and everything they are doing now. Rob also asks for a salary, but Tom explains that it's
his fourth pay cut because he's not getting any other clients and cases. Rob's right part of his
body starts to shake, and when he stands up, he faints and gets to the emergency hospital.
Sarah is waiting, and the doctor comes out; she says that it's a transient ischemic attack,
it's like a stroke, and it's because of too much stress.
Sarah assures us that it's not anything caused by a chemical. Sarah also confronts Tom for not
being fair to Rob, and she says that his life is terrible and his job is his life,
stop making him feel like a failure. Tom isn't able to reply to Sarah, and she walks out as well.
In 2012, Rob and his family were in church. When they are about to go home,
they stop by a gas station; when a man asks him about the game,
Rob isn't able to answer, and he recognizes the face, it's Bucky. Rob is speechless.
A woman calls Bucky from the inside and calls his name; Bucky goes inside the car and leaves.
Rob goes to the office and gets a call from Sarah Frank from Science Panel,
and she apologizes at first because it takes her seven years to call.
She explains that the chemical causes every disease. Sarah also confirms that more than
3,000 people confirmed they got a severe illness after the blood test, while most of
them have a possibility of getting it later in life. When Rob gets home and has dinner,
someone calls him and explains that DuPont is reneging. It frustrates Rob because his
work might get useless throughout the years, but he refuses and still goes into the fight.
In 2015 in Columbus, Ohio, the trial court, another hearing starts, and when all of the
people are changing, the judge asks Rob's name, and he states it; the judge gets surprised because
after all these years, he's still there. After almost a 2-decade ongoing fight against DuPont.
The movie ends by showing the real people behind every character.
The effect of these trials, first of these cases, Rob won a jury award of $1.6 million,
the second was $5.6 million, and this is $12.5 million. DuPont gives $600 million for the 3,000
plus cases confirmed by the blood test who got a disease after using a DuPont product.