Denzel Washington is a hard-working blue collar father whose son needs a heart transplant but who has run out of money and can't afford further medical treatment. He impulsively takes over Hope Memoral Hospital in Chicago, calling himself "John Q." (as in "John Q. Public"), holds the minimal weekend staff hostage and demands that his son be put on the list of recipients for a donated heart by a doctor (Anne Heche). Outside, the police (Robert Duvall and Ray Liotta) surround the place, a thousand guns aimed at the hospital, and try variously to negotiate with him or to snipe him. No donor being available, Washington decides that since he and his son have been tissue-typed and match, Washington will blow his own brains out to provide the necessary heart. Lots of arguments follow, involving chiefly one of the hostages who happens to be a cardiac surgeon (James Woods). As in a miracle, a young woman with a matching heart dies and the donation comes through just as Washington is wrestling with the damned safety on the automatic he's holding to his head. Whew! A close call, I'd say.
Well, it has a truly competent professional cast, no doubt about it, and they play it at par. Also quite good in a small role is Paul Johansson. Nick Cassavetes' direction is functional but no more than that.
The movie's up against the wall though. Inevitably we're dealing with de Maupassant's "Boule de Souif," in which a small group of people of varying tastes and backgrounds are squeezed together under pressure and little dramas play out between them. In a case like this the success depends as much on the script as on anything else. Given that it's going to look a little mechanical, and given that none if any of the characters can be given full development, whether the film satisfies or not hangs on what the characters say.
"Stagecoach" did a fine job, and so did "Twelve Angry Men" and "Dog Day Afternoon," so it's not an impossible task. The characters here are mostly predictably stereotyped. Among the police, we have the negotiator in conflict with the exterminator. We have conflict within the hospital between the pragmatist doctor and the humanist doctor. Among the waiting-room patients we have the noble black couple about to have their first child and the cowardly slapaho sniveling braggart of a white guy. The police sniper is fat, sweaty, sneering, and ugly.
And they pretty much stay the way they are. There is a good deal of preaching that goes on. HMOs come in for a good deal of abuse. We know immediately that the chief of police, Liotta, is a simple-minded goon because he shows up at the "hostage situation" in full uniform, dripping with decorations, shaking hands with the press, telling everyone what to do because he knows best -- "How do you think I got THESE?", he shouts at Duvall's negotiator, pointing to the four stars on his shoulder. Oh -- the press. I forgot about the press. I leave it up to you to guess whether the model presented to us is the same as that in the "Die Hard" films (get the scoop at all costs, and make sure my hair looks good) or the idealistic responsible model the fifth estate would like us to swear to. The film overall takes a worthwhile story about a social issue and turns it into and almost unbroken string of sentimental clichés.
There are some good things going for the film, despite the weaknesses of the script. A few exchanges stand out. As in "Dog Day Afternoon," when the crowd cheers Al Pacino, there is a crowd here that goes wild with applause when Denzel Washington appears at the hospital door. But Duvall puts it in perspective. "You're just the cause for today. Tomorrow you'll be forgotten." Anne Heche, the hard-boiled doctor, is given a good line too. If we give in to Washington's demands today, tomorrow the hospitals will be filled with gun-toting loonies. Why is it a good line, when nothing more is made of it? Because although it sounds like common sense there is not the slightest evidence that it's true. Our values are filled with such axioms. We never negotiate with terrorists. We only negotiate from a position of strength. Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile. Skinnerian reenforcement works well with puppies and rats under controlled conditions. But does it work outside the lab? Probably, in a general way, but what's really at stake when we refuse negotiation -- reenforcement or our own pride? Should life and death depend on a notion so simple that it can be put on a bumper sticker? The film isn't entirely original or gripping, despite the tension inherent in the situation, but I'd be willing to rate it above average if it just makes us think a little more about that primitive belief.
It's necessary to add that this is not a partisan liberal tract. The economics of HMOs is briefly and cogently explained and they come out looking bad. Not because they're evil but because that's the way health plans were structured. They were a social problem years before they became a political issue.
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