Published at: Feb. 10, 2002, 8:41 a.m. CST by staff
Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Steve Dallas, shaken and woozy after seeing JOHN Q, called me in the middle of the night. He was trying to write the review you're about to read, and he was weeping. He kept talking crazy, saying how he was going to sue someone for making him see the film, but before he could make sense, he passed out. Hoping to teach him a lesson, I left the phones connected and off the hook, running up a eleven hour long-distance call before he finally hung up on his end.
It took him almost two days to fully process the horror, and now he's finally poured the pain out on paper for you to savor. Enjoy!!
M.,
Thanks to the good people at CHUD.com, I caught a screening of John Q a few nights back. It’s got a great cast – Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall, James Woods, and Ray Liotta, just to name a few. It deals with an important social issue – Health Care Reform. This film had an awful lot going for it, and many in the theater seemed to genuinely enjoy it. But I left the theatre tonight deeply disturbed by what I had seen. John Q is a great commercial, but it’s a terrible film.
It’s a very simple story – Denzel plays John Quincy Archibald, a down on his luck factory worker. He has a pretty wife (Kimberly Elise) and a great son, Mike (Daniel E. Smith – cute as a button). Together, they’re the stereotypical blue-collar family just trying to make ends meet. One Sunday after church, little Mikey collapses on the baseball field. As it turns out, Mikey has a number of congenital heart defects and will die in a matter of weeks without a transplant. John’s HMO wont cover this, and he has to scramble to come up with the money himself. Although he sells everything he owns, he fails to raise the money needed to put his son on the list for a new heart. When EvilCorporateHospital threatens to discharge his son, Denzel takes matters into his own hands – Taking the entire ER hostage until his son is put on the donor list.
What works about this film? Health care reform is a serious issue which merits serious attention. Director Nick Cassavetes and screenwriter James Kearns have succeed in making this complex issue accessible. They simplify the issues, laying them out in black & white. They make us care by giving us characters we can relate too -- good guys to cheer for and bad guys to root against. You don’t have to think much to watch this movie.
But that’s the problem. Health Care reform is a complex issue. It’s not black & white – it is a hellish muddle of grays. Think back to the movies you have seen that directly addressed social issues -- Philadelphia, Traffic, The Insider, and Silkwood, just to name a few. To watch these films, you had to think. They raised issues, presented the audience with information, and left you to make up your own mind. It’s just like in school – you learn better when you have to figure out the answer for yourself. People discuss the issues with their friends and neighbors, and the national dialogue is increased. As a society, we’re better when films like those are made.
JOHN Q doesn’t aim for a discussion. It’s after a lynching. Cassavetes and Kern reduce what could have been an interesting film on the actual effects of our health care system into a propaganda piece worthy of Reifenstahl. Don’t get me wrong -- If HMO’s were to die a slow and painful death, I’d be the happiest guy on the planet. They are evil institutions, but that doesn’t justify these means. This film is a blatant piece of pure spin – a one sided tale that permits only one conclusion. The last five minutes even include bits of speeches by Hillary Clinton and Jesse Jackson. You aren’t supposed to make up your own mind – you are beaten into submission with stilted exposition, brave heroes, dastardly villains, and an over-the-top score. You aren’t supposed to think. You’re supposed to accept what’s right there in front of you.
Throughout history, this has been a favorite tactic of politicians, advertisers, and despots – only give half of the story, and cover up the rest with ruffles & flourishes. You simplify the issues, and allow only one conclusion. Watch Falwell do his thing sometime. He’s a master. Clinton was pretty good himself. If those two aren’t your type, Al Sharpton does a pretty good bit as well. Of course, going back even further, nobody was better than Gobbells.
Simplifying the issues wasn’t enough, though. To make sure the point got across, they had to simplify the characters as well. You see, if a character isn't all good or all bad, you (the filmgoing public) might not know quite how to feel about them. To reduce this risk, every character is polarized – they are either good or evil, with nothing in between. To ensure appropriate empathy, all characters are stock. Every one is as familiar as an old shoe. We’ve got a rich arrogant surgeon (James Woods), the uncaring hospital administrator (Anne Heche), the grizzled hostage negotiator (Robert Duvall), the glory-loving police chief (Ray Liotta), the sleazy reporter, the caring mom
(Kimberly Elise), the loyal friend, the fat security guard (Ethan Suplee), and the comic-relief black guy (Eddie Griffin). Regrettably, the film also relies heavily on class & race stereotypes to further its message.
While it may be easy for us to identify these characters, they are as interesting to watch as Farming on TNN. The characters are so thinly drawn that they are impossible to relate to. You don’t care if they live, die, or break into show tunes. As they are easily identifiable, they are indistinguishable, and just as soon forgotten.
Finally, Cassavetes and Kern didn’t want the audience to get too morose or downbeat while dealing with this serious topic, so they introduce comedic elements. When John Q takes over the ER, he ushers everyone out except for a group of fun-lovin’ hostages. Even though many of them are wounded (they were in the ER, after all), they spend the next 30 minutes crackin’ wise with their captor. It dissolves into some sort of surreal sitcom -- the characters sit around and discuss what’s wrong with the health care system, while that wacky John Q struggles to run the ER. Calls come in begging for help. Ambulances arrive with gunshot victims. Imagine the worst episode of ER you have ever seen. Now, replace the cast with the hostages on the bus in SPEED. Now you get the idea. This is John Q.
By introducing comedy into the equation, The director looses what little tension & drama he had managed to create. It’s a very laid-back hostage situation – you never think for a minute that anyone might actually get hurt. Even worse, the audience didn’t know when to laugh or when to cry. For example, near the end of the film John Q decides to take his own life so that his son might have his heart. When Denzel puts the gun in his mouth, the audience cracked up. The director didn’t help by having Denzel make faces at the camera and turn the gun around sideways. That really brought the house down. In fact, the only thing that worked for me in the entire film was the comedy, intentional or otherwise. The people around me laughed pretty much straight through. Eddie Griffin, if you’re out there – you were great. What the hell were you thinking?
Speaking of the performances, the acting was lackluster across the board. The first 15 minutes of the film, focusing on John Q’s family, was actually pretty strong -- But it was downhill from there. Denzel gives it an honest try, but his situation ends up being so ridiculous that his performance looses its credibility. Kimberly Elise does a great job playing “Mrs. Q”, and Daniel Smith is great as the stricken Michael. Robert Duval seems to enjoy himself, riffing on past performances and walking through this job. James Woods bored the hell out of me. Ray Liotta and Anne Heche play cartoons. In the cast’s defense, I don’t think they had much to work with. Many of them look bored.
In the end, someone has to ask the question . How do you take this cast, address these issues, and make this bad of a film? Nick Cassavetes clearly made some bad decisions – most notably, picking up this script in the first place, but the film technically isn't all that bad. The beefs I have with the film – its ham fisted delivery, its pathetic characters, and its comedic elements, I have to blame on James Kearns. He wrote this. His previous credits include episodes of Jake & the Fat Man and Highway to Heaven. This, people, is why I don’t watch PAX.
I’ve been reading this site for years. When a really bad film comes out, you’ll hear the familiar refrain… “I want my two hours back.” You know what, this time, that isn't enough. This film offended me. It insulted my intelligence, and it pissed me off. I haven’t left a theatre angry in years. This movie will stifle meaningful discourse on Health Care Reform, a cause I care deeply about, and replace it with a cacophony of bullshit propaganda from both sides and lots of OPRAH episodes. This is a CRITICALLY important topic, and it deserved a better treatment than this. The loss of two hours I consider trivial in comparison.
The email address follows. Somebody owes me an apology.
