GIVE A MAN NO OPTIONS AND YOU LEAVE HIM NO CHOICE
GIVE A MAN NO SCRIPT AND YOU LEAVE HIM NO MOVIE….
Give an audience no movie and you leave them no entertainment….I could go on.

Mother always said, say something nice or nothing at all. I’ll take half her advice:
Denzel’s performance was mostly believable. Now, here’s where Mom and I part company:

This movie is a prime example of exactly what is wrong with Hollywood in the exact same way that Ding Dongs are wrong to Nutrition. It is designed to be tasty and delicious, but it’s full of sugar and fat and may give you a heart attack (pun intended.)

Like Ding Dongs, you want to like it (who hasn’t enjoyed a Ding Dong) because of its tasty subject matter which basically boils down to raging at "the man." …the HMO man, the POLICE man, the INSURANCE man, the DOCTOR man, the HOSPITAL man. But, also like a DING DONG, it delivers empty calories, and possibly, heartburn.

The subject matter involved is complex, serious, emotional, important …too bad the script was none of these. "Hey, let’s make a movie about clubbing baby seals! It’s wrong. It’s emotionally charged. It’ll get everybody’s attention! Who wouldn’t get on thebandwagon?" And, can you just imagine the trailer! "Cloe up on the fluffy white baby seal’s big black eyes…fade to black." "It’ll be stirring!"…for about five minutes…then the good idea moves into the realm of actually needing a movie to fill in the remaining hour and a half of time. That’s where "Let’s Bake a Movie" comes in handy. All you need do is take old movie lines, melodrama, tears, heart-ache, plenty of guns and cops, and serve it up with a big name star, or two, or three (season to taste) and voila…instant movie. These issues may be better served with one-minute public service announcements.

The film itself is a heart-attack. It continuously demands to RIP OUR HEARTS OUT. You couldn’t possibly feel more publicly forced and violated in a sensitive area unless the model bidet at the IKEA showroom was accidentally hooked up to the neighboring high-pressure car-wash line.

There has not been a movie so obvious in its manipulation since the Third Reich was making films. To say it is contrived is to say that a tidal wave is moist.

The script was clearly just jelly filling to keep the oversized pastry from collapsing. There was no continuity of thought holding it together. In the very same over-the-top monologue, John Q tells his son "your word is bond…." Then he goes on to tell him, "do whatever you can do to make money, even if you have to sell yourself out." Huh? The writer couldn’t even remember what he had written one line earlier. Other favorite bloopers were: John Q does not give his full name to the police negotiator (he says his name is…John Q…go figure) but then mentions that his demands are that his son get put on the heart transplant list. "And your son would be….Patient Q?" Let’s see, son’s last name is probably the same as father’s…you do the math! The movie hinges one of its biggest gripes in the fact that John Q was switched from a PPO to an HMO, but later explains that his son was always misdiagnosed (on purpose) because he belonged to an HMO. (You cannot have this both ways Mr. AUTHOR OF CONVENIENCE.

This movie also relied on HACK (pre-used/borrowed) lines from movies as far back as "The Wizard of Oz!" I could hardly contain myself when the dying boy’s mother wanted to lay into the Queen Bitch that Ann Heche effectively (if not monotonously) plays, but she claims she cannot tell her off because she is a "Christian Woman!" Hello! That’s Aunt Em’s line to Mrs. Gulch (the wicked witch.) That’s "just the tip of the ice-berg" (to use an over-used quip.)

The movie’s simplistic battering of a complex issue does a disservice to a real issue that faces American’s and their ever-more complicated healthcare.
You can’t get this kind and magnitude of preaching unless Jerry Falwell sets up a revival tent in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood.

The director has successfully made a movie that gives you pause:
Throughout the film, he hits a GIGANTIC PAUSE BUTTON so that the movie can stop for round-table discussions on HMOs, politics, humanity, and money. The stop is so jarring, obvious, and noticeable, it’s like trying to keep Roberto Benigni hidden amongst a cloister of silent monks. The writer has no skill whatsoever at integrating issues into a movie. This film is definitely in the running for the coveted "The Emperor Has No Clothes" award given to the most self-important, socially-significant-frocked film to parade down the street and expect us to all applaud. Director Cassavettes and writer Kearns should get themselves on that heart transplant list A.S.A.P.

On a small, light and fluffy note: I am forced to finally report that the obligatory "Wacky Black Character needed to add humor to a tense situation" was actually good in this film. Perhaps it’s because he was actually entertaining in stark contrast to the movie happening around him. I think I’ll take his advice and "get a bucket of chicken." It’s be a lot more satisfying and less of a waste of time than this flick was.


WHAT I LEARNED FROM THIS MOVIE:
It’s okay to endanger and threaten hundreds of innocent people and kill yourself so long as there’s nearly impossible odds at helping one small, teary-eyed, child that couldn’t act to save his own life.



"YOU DO THE MATH"
Once and for all, America, basic video gear, security cameras, and the like cannot "ZOOM IN" to un-identifiable image blobs on a TV screen and magically decipher it into a clear image of an object or person. This bullshit is so over-used by lazy writers it must be called out and labeled for what it is: A CINE CONVENIENCE.

cineconvenience n.
1 quick fix in a movie or screenplay. 2 writing device which superficially and quickly pastes over major plot-holes in an incongruous script. 3 magical introduction of new, un-clever gimmick which gets lazy writers out of corner they painted themselves into