I still find it kind of a coincidence that this was aired here on the cable the day before Fathers' Day here. Father Jedediah Ward (Gene Hackman) and daughter Maggie (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) are both lawyers and coincidentally, they are on the opposing ends of a major court case.
From the start, one can see that Maggie is very driven to be successful in the lawyers' circles given she told her boss she wanted to take on the case because she is very aware of the company the law firm she works for represents. And her colleagues then told her that her father is the plaintiff for the case. Now this drove the daughter to outwin her father in the courtroom even more.
All the estrangement actually went back to the time when Maggie realised her father is not faithful to her mother. So whenever they passed by each other, Maggie often never gave her father one look. After Mrs Ward's passing, father and daughter reunite each other for a while...but! The old issues all came back.
And when along the way in researching for the case, an obstacle appeared and it almost led Maggie into trouble. Jedediah thought his daughter is almost in trouble and they managed to clear out some things between each other. It even led to surprising events which happened on the day of the big court case.
For me who has always been interested how lawyers always go about their work, this is a nice introduction. Father-daughter relationship is also being explored here. That is why I said about the movie on cable the day before it's Fathers' Day today here.
