Hey folks, Harry here with a fairly depressing review of Denzel Washington's JOHN Q. I love the trailer for this movie, the premise that was set up, and while I know Two Extra Joe... I also know I often disagree with him on little things like his love of painted face babboons and fuzzy stuffed spear chunking aliens of Endor....
Greetings great one. Long time reader, first time reviewer. I love your site dude, just have to say, and I finaly came across something noteworthy. I attended the first test screening (at least they said it was the first time anyone had ever seen it) of "John Q" the new Denzel Washington, Robert Duval movie. I didn't watch the trailer and I didn't read the paper they gave us to tell us what it was about so I went into it completely cold. My friend, who I will call the Romulan Retainer, took me to the screening and we got in.
The credits came up and I saw that it was a Denzel movie, which is major points. I lucked out and another friend had taken me to Training Day and I totally loved that. It kicked major ass and Denzel was the shit. He tore that movie up. So okay, by now I'm stoked. Then Robert Duval. More points. You see, I too love the smell of napalm in the morning, it smells like...like victory. So then we also get Ray Liotta. Okay, he's been cool, most of the time. And then it started, and it simply began to suck the life out of me. I let you know when there are spoilers.
The movie opens with a car crash. Then, as it goes unexplained we are treated to a 30 minute made for the Lifetime network movie about a blue collar man (Denzel) his wife and sick son. This is the slowest, dullest, least involving intro to a movie I've seen in years. Dullsville, population: John Q.
Then there is a beautiful moment when the plot becomes evident and everything works. This is when everything kicks into high gear and the movie gets good. Well, kind of. Don't get me wrong, I liked some of what I saw, but all in all, it felt done. You know, it had all been done before. Well, this thing has some twists and turns, but nothing really exciting, but it didn't quite suck either.
I can't really go much further without spoilers, so here they are: I'll conclude in the last paragraph for those who want to be surprised by the mediocrity.
Spoliers
Okay, so the gist is that John Q's son is sick and he doesn't have the money to get him on the donor list for a new heart. So big daddy Denzel (who is good, but no where near as good as in Training Day, I mean he's always good. He could win a golden globe just by driving to work if they bothered to film it. The man is just cool) holds up the hospital. Robert Duval is the hostage negotiator, who is very underused. Then enter Ray Liotta, playing a plot device involved in one of the oldest hostage storylines of all time: you know, the one where the negotiator wants to talk him out but his superior want to go in guns blazing. Well Ray Liotta is the guns blazing chief of police. Well does it work you ask? Does it ever work? No. It fails and the story goes on.
Then we get loads of politacl statements about how guns and violence are bad. It's just so forced. They are spoon feeding you their morality. And this thing plays out like a two hour advertisment for the Clinton Administration. Guns are bad, Socialized medicine is good. If there were credits, I'm sure they would have listed the Bill-Hilly's in their thanks column.
And this thing panders to the audience so badly its appalling. I mean, there were 5 points where the audience applauded, all of which involved bad guys getting their just desserts. There's not a single charecter that is portrayed in a negative light that doesn't get beat up or screwed by the end of the movie. But in such a way that is really trying to appease the audience. It's just plain sad.
So then we come to the big twist that could make the movie good. Denzel demands of James Woods (the surgon) that he kill him, cut his heart out and give it to his son. Woods won't. Denzel then says he'll kill himself. Woods relents and agrees, but only if Denzel offs himself. This was a great twist. But then it leads into the tear jerker scene in which Denzel tries to impart a lifetime of knowledge into 5 minutes. It's very sweet but goes on for too long. My favorite part of the screening was when he says in this speech "Make money whenever you can, even if you have to sell out" and I turned to the Romulan Retainer and said "Ten bucks says this isn't a spec script".
Well, here's where everything goes terribly wrong. The movie was at the very least okay. Then it becomes A.I. all over again. Denzel tries to kill himself, but the safteys on. Then he takes it off and the story leads us to believe that he shoots himself. Well, guess what, while this is happening, They miraculously find a heart (from the aforementioned car crash which doesn't tie into the story or timeline of this totally linear film at all) and people are rushing in to let him know. Well, guess what, he doesn't kill himslef. We never find out why. He doesn't chicken out, no one tries to stop him, but minutes later he is still alive and his son gets the transplant. Yay. Audience applauds. It's just like that sinking feeling in your gut when you realize Haley Joel Osment isn't going to Die in A.I. but rather get his last day with mom after all. Everything ends well, except they drag out the ending, then the trial but never bother to tell us what really happens afterwards.
Now if Denzel had Offed himself, that would be great. All would be forgiven. Then we have Irony, then we have tragedy. This, this is fluff crap with a happy ending. Their point is lost. This whole social medicine thing goes down the crapper because we are not called to action as an audience, we are entertained and told, rather specifially, what to think. The end sequnce even has a written statement about how many americans don't have health insurance. Overkill. By this time I no longer care. I fill out my form, pray that many others felt the same way I did and leave.
This movie is clearly not ready. It needs recutting to, at the very least, make it move better. Right now its slower than a 10 mile footrace between Marlon Brando and Paul Prudhomme. But most of all, it needs a new ending. This kind of story needs to have all the blatent refrences about their point removed and Denzel needs to die. We need to leave the theater having suffered tragedy and most importantly we need to leave thinking. This movie tries so hard to force feed you its ideas that you simply don't care about them. If Denzel dies, then we can feel the emotional call to arms about a message that is overstated in the beginning, let alone the end. And maybe, just maybe they can salvage something memorable.
As is this movie will make some money, but it will by no means be good or worth remembering. I remember Harry, you said a while back that Denzel gives a great performance every year that gets forgotten come oscar time. This is the one. So if that's what it takes to get him the Oscar for Training Day, by all means let them release this as is. But if this film will be worth what they paid for the cast, well then, it's time to retool it. This thing belongs direct to cable.
Two Extra Joe.
