John Q. is a medical drama directed by Nick Casavettes, son of the late director John Casavettes and actress extraordinaire, Gena Rowland. Enough said. You go into the movie expecting something, you just can’t help it. And you do get something but it’s not enough.

While Denzel Washington does an outstanding job as the lead character, backed up by stars like Robert Duvall, Anne Heche and Ray Liotta….the script leaves you wishing the writers had taken another week to rewrite the thing just one more time. Situations are contrived, eloquent speeches are given by characters who would not be able to talk like that in real life and James Woods’ and Anne Heche’s characters turn on a dime without any reasonable explanations why they would do so other than they needed to do in order to move the movie forward. While I enjoy the underdog theme and taking on the fight for fairness, this movie fell flat and overcompensated its written weaknesses with an overpowering and totally misplaced sense of music choices. Go and see it if you must, but I’d say rent it, so at least you can stay home on the couch and snuggle up with your partner. But if you’re smart, you'll see Dog Day Afternoon with Al Pacino.