Customer Reviews

Extreme Measures

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Michael Palmer's novel owes a lot to Robin Crook's novel Coma which was filmed by Michael Crichton and uses the same hospital setting for scientific experimentation. Director Michael Apted may not have Crichton's touch for paranoid thrillers but clearly producer Elizabeth Hurley saw the property as a change of image vehicle for her then boyfriend Hugh Grant. Although here Grant only partly manages to suppress the self-conscious ticks and stammerings that he used in his cross-over hit Four Weddings and a Funeral, his apologetic body language still fits as a British doctor in an New York public hospital who stumbles across a medical conspiracy (the ole doctors playing God again). The screenplay by Tony Gilroy has Grant repeat phrases like "Let me just get this clear", as if being British gave him some language barrier, and his reaction to an obstructive laboratory attendant is amusing in his understated outrage, culminating in "You're quite a creepy person". For those who find Grant's schtick annoying, this perormance is one to be admired. The film is notable for Sarah Jessica Parker wearing an odd half-brown half-red hairdo (Madonna has a lot to answer for), Gene Hackman playing older than his real age, and the presentation of an underground world of darkness where the homeless and dispossessed live in the bowels of Grand Central Station. Although an art director's delight, one gets the feeling this is not an imaginary location. The mystery at the centre of the film involves the use of those considered to "have nothing" and making them "heroes", but this logic is on a par with the Nazi doctors who used concentration camp inmates for experimental research. And any medical facility which employs security guards who use their guns before their brains can't be good. Apted uses some tired thriller conventions like the foot caught in a railroad track with an oncoming train, the dark figure appearing in the background to see someone searching secret paperwork, and a fistfight in a descending elevator with the numbers lighting up, and Gilroy lingers so long on one plot point that we can easily guess that is a deception. The Danny Elfman score has suggestions of gothic malevolence but Apted misuses it.

The premise of this film is both excellent, interesting and credible. It had the ability to be "Coma" for the 90's, and aswell as raising the issue of the vulnerability of the patient role it highlights the occasional corrupt, explotative nature of the Medical profession. All very real fears, all quiet likely and delivered with believable conviction by a sterling cast. Grant is not always quite believable but this may have more to do with his established typecast as the eternal British fop and speaking as an Englishman I have to say both he and then Girlfiend Hurley (who produced this film) do overplay the Englishness with grating regularity! Hackman is brilliantly menacing, Parker is subdued and intelligently simmering.
The film gathers a sleuth like pace, like the very best of tense thrillers and then it sells out near the end and ruins the enitire work, divorcing itself from reality for the sake of cheap thrills. A terrible shame!

Extreme Measures does an EXCELLENT job of shedding light on the sensitive issue of how far is far enough in relation to scientific advancement and experimentation.
It deals with concepts such as where does one set the boundaries in regards to Medicine and Science, as well as touching on the topics of Morality, Change and Progress, and questions like do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or should it be the other way around? Most importantly, it brings attention to and succeeds in making people aware of the existence of such dilemmas, which have been characteristic of mankind throughout history.
Hugh Grant does a great job in his dramatic role as Dr Guy Luthan, as does Gene Hackman as Dr Lawrence Myrick. It is an amazing thriller with familiar elements from the X-Files. The plot, the setting, and the dialogues are all very good!
Extreme Measures is a very good movie, guaranteed to provide an evening's entertainment. In addition, it is one of those films that gets you and keeps you thinking long after it's over.
Overall, it is a movie definitely worth watching!

"Extreme Measures" is the story of Dr. Guy Luthan (Hugh Grant), a physician working out his residency at Gramercy Hospital. Guy's personal life and profession seem to be right on track until one of his patients unexpectedly dies of mysterious circumstances. Was it medical malpractice, an accident or something much more sinister? Not since Michael Crighton's "Coma" have we seen a medical suspense/thriller told with such skill and timely shock value. Nothing is what it appears to be and no one is who they report themselves to be. Sarah Jessica Parker costars as Jodie Trammel, a nurse and Guy's most trusted friend. She is distraught when Guy is arrested for drug possession but is her apprehension at testifying on his behalf a byproduct of her own disappointment, or is she cloaking a more guarded secret. Gene Hackman is simply marvelous as Dr. Lawrence Myrick, a benevolent crusader in stem cell research who is actually using his connections and considerable clout to fund a clinic using human test subjects.

Originally released under the Castlerock label, which used to belong to Columbia Tristar, this movie is now the property of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment and it looks marvelous on DVD. Colors are well balanced, bold and rich. Flesh tones are infinitely more accurate on the DVD than on the previously released laserdisc or VHS versions from Columbia. Contrast and shadow delineation are superb with fine detail visible even during the darkest scenes. The disc is correctly framed in its 2:35:1 ratio and anamorphically enhanced. The audio is a 5.1 mix and nicely balanced with a very aggressive bass that will give your speakers a work out. There are NO extras. I suppose I could fault Warner for not giving us a featurette but with a transfer this good - who cares?

I just saw this film today 11 years after it's release and loved it. The acting, pacing, and writing are excellent. The film does follow a formula we have all seen but in this case I applaud the use of a formula in order to keep the plot moving and the focus on the ultimate question-What is the value of human life? This movie is entertaining and smart.

Snatched from what would appear to be the latest Crichton novel, Gramercy Hospital's ER is baffled by the strange appearance and subsequent death of a bald escapee from another big apple medical center. Guy (Grant), a harried MD, doesn't need this action. He just wants to do his time and bolt to his promised research post at NYU. You had to know it wouldn't be that easy. The doc turned amateur detective accordingly stumbles upon a series of mysteries that in this case history includes missing records, suspicious hospital administrators, and serious lapses of movie logic.

Findings: Something's rotten in the state of healthcare. Well, duh! Human guinea pigs are getting greased and all Guy can come up with is the word triphase. In too deep and getting little help from nurse Jodie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Guy crashes and burns. Evil operatives plant drugs in his apartment, the career goes kaput, and Guy takes a ride into the underbelly of New York (including a harrowing subway scene that ends with a big-bam-boom surprise). All the while he's all but blind to the sinister, morally bankrupt ideals of Dr. Myrick (Gene Hackman). This dweeb's God complex makes Dr. Frankenstein look like the nutty professor.

Grant is low-key and likeable. Sure it's slick, but the suspense is real, which makes Extreme Measures a consuming score for Hurley, Grant, and director Michael Apted.

Micheal Apted's Extreme Measures is a snake of a medical drama, writhing around in the dark dank areas of medicine that are independent of scalpels, anastesia, and emergency room proceedures. It's concerned with the hippocratic subconscious, decisions that have less to do with making the proper incisions and zapping the heart back into rhythm and more to do with the god-like freedom that can come from medical knowledge. Hackman is superb in a role that never vears into pure villainy, but hovers upon the thin line between moral justifications and immoral personal detachment. Grant is surprisingly effective and shows wonderful range in shedding his usual spasms of nervousness. The last 15 minutes is intellectual chewing gum for us all to masticate upon.

We loved the book by Michael Palmer, on which this movie is "officially" based - but except for experimentation on unknowing human subjects, the two stories bear little more similarity than Palmer's name as "author". Nonetheless, Hugh Grant as Dr. Guy Luthran does a quite competent job in a serious part that's a departure from his normal romantic comedies. Gene Hackman also stars as the "evil" doctor who it turns out is doing illegal surgeries on homeless subjects who get "selected" by special ID work at the hospital where our hero works. A missing victim soon sends Luthran on a scary search for homeless people deep in the city's subway bowels, where David Morse ("Hack", et al) is stalking him for some unknown "FBI" reasons. Sara Jessica Parker serves as a supporting mild love interest but shows up later as part of the insidious plot. Some ethical issues near the end of the film raise some interesting points to ponder, and leave us guessing `til the end which way things might go.

A decent plot, good acting, and sustained suspense, with some credible acting by all the name actors, add up to an entertaining movie. The DVD itself has no extra features and comes in a cheap cardboard "keepbox", with only Dolby Surround Sound, not 5.1 Digital. Aside from these quibbles, an enjoyable hour-and-a-half awaits!

Extreme Measures is a different kind of Hugh`s films ..
It`s a serious role but he act it very well :)

Fans of "Desperate Measures" should enjoy this movie. Both Gene Hackman and Hugh Grant are great. Fans of either of these stars will definitely want to catch them in this dramatic movie. The medical dilemna that unfolds in a seemingly innocent donor program leads to a cover up that is far reaching, and extremely thought provoking in principle.

The drama is great and the acting is superb. The directing, sets, and music are good. What you will carry away the most is probably a good conversation with a friend on the ethics of some medical programs that are or aren't publicly practiced. It is amazing what some people will do in the name of progress or medical science. An ongoing ethical struggle that we see today with Stem cells.