There might be a good movie to be made about VA hospital neglect and mismanagement, but this certainly isn't it. The film has little to recommend it besides an attractive cast (all but invisible in their token, two-dimensional roles) and a screenplay written with obvious firsthand experience of medical red tape. Unfortunately, it was also written with every godawful comedy-drama cliché imaginable, making the film resemble a frustrated doctor's heroic third person fantasy of sex, action, gunfire, and bogus inspiration, none of it enough to distract viewers from the cardboard characters and strictly formula plot. Are all VA doctors this selfless, handsome, and good humored? And are all disabled veterans (including the maniac who drives his truck through the hospital lobby) so courageous and long-suffering? With a little more subtlety and black humor it might have been a worthwhile home front companion piece to Robert Altman's 'M*A*S*H*', but director Howard Deutch is more comfortable with crass exaggeration, limiting the film's appeal to an audience already force fed on a diet of TV ads and stale sitcoms.
Review of Article 99
