Review by C.J. Bunce
Law and order has been the foundation of empires and nations for Earth’s history. Free nations are determined by how they respect the consistent administration of the law. America for its part is largely derived from English law. At its foundation, administrative law, also called regulatory law, is the interpretation of the laws of both the United States and England. The American movies A Civil Action and Erin Brockovich are true accounts of legal cases where two major corporations failed to follow those regulations. In the courts, juries determined that those corporations’ actions resulted in death or other harms to people, imposing rewards to the plaintiffs to both punish the corporations and contribute to putting the victims closer to where they would have been without those bad actions. Of course you cannot bring people back from the dead, and money only goes so far when your kid is born with a deformed arm.
Harms by corporations internationally are so chronically pervasive that law students take an entire course in “toxic torts”–studying those breaches of legal duty resulting from exposure to toxic chemicals or hazardous materials. Toxic Town is based on the true story of a known toxic waste site where a muddy sludge and its inevitable dust was improperly handled and negligently leaked and disposed of with the knowledge of members of the local government in Corby, a small steel town in England’s East Midlands. The landmark court decision is significant as the first in the world to establish a link between atmospheric toxic waste and birth defects. Top acting featuring Doctor Who’s Jodie Whittaker and James Bond’s Rory Kinnear with 28 Weeks Later’s Robert Carlyle, a good script, and four tightly edited episodes make Toxic Town an often riveting and emotionally compelling introduction to toxic torts under English law. It’s streaming now on Netflix.
The Corby toxic waste decision wasn’t that long ago–only 2009. For the series many elements like names were fictionalized. Three women find each other and realize they aren’t alone in having kids born with deformities in their small community. Jodie Whittaker plays Susan McIntyre, whose son not only was born with a deformed hand, but surgeries using parts of his feet to improve its use are hindered by the boy’s weakened immune system, all resulting in yearly operations and infections. Aimee Lou Wood (The White Lotus) plays Tracey Taylor, whose daughter was born without valves in her heart resulting in her death shortly after birth. And Claudia Jessie (Bridgerton) plays Maggie Mahon, whose husband brought the mud and dust into her home for months, resulting in a baby with issues similar to Susan’s. All three women inhabit strong characters, each with singular personalities, led by the brash Susan, whose dialogue is even more colorful thanks to Whitakker’s application of the local Corby accent. But the most gut-wrenching performance is by Wood, whose character lost the most and suffers the most through the story.
Three men come to the aid of their cause against the dismissive local council leader Roy Thomas, played by Downton Abbey’s Brendan Coyle (the story practically begs the viewer to ask why society continues to elect thoughtless and reckless villains like that to leadership positions). Stephen McMillan plays Ted Jenkins, a young engineer and inspector inside the steelworks reclamation company, who logs and reports the disposal deficiencies, only to get bribed, chided, bullied, and ultimately fired for contrived reasons. He slips his findings to a washed-up magistrate named Sam Hagen (one of the real-life characters in the series), played by Robert Carlyle. Hagen never veers from his attempts to get Roy Thomas to admit the wrongdoing. Rory Kinnear plays Des Collins, a solicitor from the community who brings the case into the courtroom, assembling all the data from the women and hiring scientists to connect the dots between the toxins and the human harm. Kinnear fills the shoes well of the lawyer played by Albert Finney in Erin Brockovich. All of the performances reflect the best of England’s actors.
If this story sounds a bit familiar, it may remind viewers of Sherwood. This series is similar to, but ultimately better than that BritBox series, which stars David Morrissey in more of a drawn out drama about relationships more than the toxins plot. Toxic Town might have made a good movie were it edited down, but ultimately most of the four hours is compelling drama.
Your can’t go wrong with a well made courtroom drama, and this series fits the bill. Don’t miss Toxic Town, now streaming on Netflix.
