Call the script doctor!

>> John Q. is mediocre medicare melodrama


by MATTHEW HAYS

You’ve got to hand it to John Q. screenwriter James Kearns. This film jumps through every hoop imaginable. That’s right—step up and see this movie: No cliché is left unturned!

The plot, simply put, has distraught dad Washington taking an emergency room hostage after his son is denied a heart transplant because he lacks proper insurance. The film follows the trail set by hostage-taking movies like Dog Day Afternoon and The China Syndrome. The moral weight of the latter is matched by the street theatre dynamics of the former.

Seeing that this film was directed by Nick Cassavetes (offspring of actor Gena Rowlands and late demigod filmmaker John Cassavetes), it’s impossible not to think that perhaps the man behind the movie was actually setting out to spoof the studio message movie. The didactic lectures about H.M.O.s and the corporate structure of American health-care provision are too earnest to be believed. The connect-the-dots emotional

manipulations—really, not one button is left untouched—are so extreme as to border on the surreal, right down to the shots of tears streaming down Anne Heche’s face (she’s one of the bureaucrats). The well-meaning cop who’s double-crossed by another; the hostages who come to cheer for their captor; the ludicrous gun-related cliffhanger. With this much screenwriting obviousness, John Q. feels less like a movie than a commentary on one.
I must add that the entire experience of watching John Q. will resonate very differently for Canadian audiences than for the American audiences it’s intended for. Suffice it to say that this is the ultimate American nightmare (can’t get health care, resort to a gun). The irony is massive—especially in a film that was actually shot in Canada but made to look like the U.S.—considering that our nation is moving in the American direction on health care. As our government dismantles our medical social-safety net, perhaps it is an idea to venture to this movie, despite its obviousness. Clichéd or not, you’ll be gazing into our future. :

John Q. opens Friday, Feb. 15