Rated PG-13 - Running Time: 1:58 - Released 2/15/02
JOHN Q
Rated PG-13 - Running Time: 1:58 - Released 2/15/02
Actor-turned-director Nick Cassavetes (She's So Lovely)
joins forces with TV writer James Kearns (Jake and the Fatman)
to produce a sincere but manipulative tear-jerker about a good
man who cracks under the pressure of society. Boy, have I been
there. Starring in this well-meaning weeper is Denzel Washington,
the original "good man," scaling back his criminal instincts
from last October's Training Day
until we feel him as one of us, a desperate slob who, when his
young son needs an expensive operation that his insurance company
won't pay for, is forced to take the law into his own hands. Also
present, and overqualified, are Robert Duvall and James Woods,
who are both so underused one wonders why the producers shelled
out the bucks for them. Maybe it was just the omnidirectional
system-bashing message they were eager to get behind. Not content
to merely extoll the virtues of standing up for oneself, the film
vilifies hospitals, HMOs, police, and the media in a self-righteous
treatise on the plight of the working class hero.
Washington is Chicago millworker John Q. Archibald, whose recent
reduction to 20 hours per week has him searching for a second
job to pay the bills. He and his wife Denise (Kimberly Elise)
eke out a living with their young son Mike (Daniel E. Smith),
but when he collapses during a Little League baseball game, they
rush him to the hospital and find that he is suffering from a
long undiagnosed heart illness, and needs a new heart immediately.
While cardiologist Dr. Turner (Woods) recommends immediate action,
hospital director Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche) is not so eager,
since John's insurance carrier does not cover this kind of surgery.
With the self-serving iciness that is apparently the primary job
qualification for hospital directors, Ms. Payne informs John that
if he can't come up with the $75,000 down payment, Mike's name
won't even be placed on the recipient list.
John tries desperately to raise the money, doing everything
from selling his car to accepting the offerings collected by his
church, but when Mike's condition worsens and Denise is informed
that the boy is about to be discharged, John decides he must take
desperate measures. He pulls a gun and takes the entire emergency
room hostage, including several patients and nurses, and the good
doctor, too, claiming that he will start shooting if his son isn't
given the operation. Soon the hospital is swarmed with law enforcement
officials and news media, including crafty Lieutenant Grimes (Duvall),
patronizing Police Chief Monro (Ray Liotta), and ambitious newsman
Tuck Lampley (Paul Johansson), whose characterization is so trite
he looks on the entire situation as a golden opportunity for wealth,
actually uttering the words, "This is my white Bronco."
This film reminds me of 1997's Mad
City, which had John Travolta taking a bunch of school
kids and a museum director at gunpoint to save his job. The difference
is that this film actually seems to encourage this sort
of vigilante justice, portraying John as an unqualified hero whose
desperate methods eventually pay off. Besides the film's pro-vigilante
bent, there are numerous instances of emotionally overblown pandering,
moments when director Cassavetes may as well have flashed the
words "cry now" on the screen.
But of course, then you have the actors. Washington, Woods, and Duvall are so capable, they almost save this schlock-fest from itself. Their technique covers a multitude of sins, and Cassavetes knows that. Good for him. Bad for us. ***½