Tuesday Special: "See you in the funny papers." -- John Q

This is in recompense for missing last week due to a retreat I was on. Yes, it's a little short. Pipe down. There's not a whole lot to say. Don't forget to read the one just before this if you only check ones a week!

John Q is a movie about how much HMOs suck. How shocking. Who knew? All joking aside, John Q's a pretty good drama talking about pretty important issues in a pretty adult way.

The basic premise is thus: John Q Archibald, played by Denzel Washington, is a blue-collar factory worker who's been cut to part-time employment. His son collapses at a Little League game and it is discovered that he needs a heart transplant. Price tag: $250,000. John and his wife go through the run-a-round of paperwork and fundraising and eventually the hospital decides to send his son back home to die. With no other options that involve the continued existence on this Earth of his son, John takes the emergency ward of the hospital hostage and demands they give his son a new heart. Eventually, that happens and he's taken off to jail. But plot summary is boring and boring is bad. No more badness.

Overall, I liked this movie. Admittedly it gets a little preachy* from time to time**, but at least it doesn't try to hide it. The acting is pretty good, and therefore so is the drama. The script doesn't usually try to be overly clever but instead goes more for realism; most of the lines I can see someone actually speaking.

Denzel Washington really makes this movie work. Although it has a lot of recognizable faces (and voices. James Woods, who here plays Dr. Raymond Turner, was the voice of Hades in Hercules), he dominates the movie. I particularly admired his ability to start crying without breaking down into sobs, to waver his voice just a little bit before picking it up again. He doesn't portray his character as a saint but merely as a good guy backed into a corner, which is nice to see.

This movie also has merit as a good example of Stockholms Syndrome, or at least the general perception of it. Although he's holding a gun to them and threatened to kill them off one by one if the police don't bend to his demands by a certain time, they become increasingly aligned to him and his cause, one of them even going so far as to impersonate John and allow himself to be arrested in his place so he can watch the doctors operate on his son.

Action: 3/5 grinders (What little action there was was decent).
Acting: 4.5/5 Berreta 9-mm's (Denzel Washington was the shining star, but pretty much everyone did a darned good job).
Story: 3/5 killer 18-wheelers (It did its job adequately).
Sound: 3.5/5 hospital stretchers (The music was most non non non heinous. I rather liked it).
Visuals: 3.5/5 color TVs (The camera angles, lens choice, lighting, etc. were all rather good. I rather liked them as well).

Overall (not necessarily determined by the above categories): 3.5/5 bogus forms (A rather nice movie and a rather good way to spend a pair or so of hours).

* And by "gets a little preachy" I of course mean "bashes you over the head with its agenda."
** And by "from time to time" I of course mean "from the time the movie starts to the time the credits roll."