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The irresponsible John Q preys on viewers' emotions as it misrepresents the complex issue of organ transplants.
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 14, 2002
John Q is a rabble-rouser movie playing fast and loose with facts about medical care, a cheap shot disguised as a warning against being pushed around by HMOs and extraordinarily heartless hospital personnel. Director Nick Cassavetes takes the cracks some patients fall into and exaggerates them into canyons swallowing us all.
The movie is a crowd-pleaser, judging from the enthusiastic response of a sneak preview audience that cheered each dangerous move made by Denzel Washington's title character, because, well, he's played by Denzel Washington. We can trust him to give us the lowdown, can't we?
No, we can't. Even Washington has publicly admitted the falseness of the film's core premise that a financially struggling father must resort to terrorism to secure a heart transplant for his dying son. In reality, there are plenty of charity organizations and medical agencies that would operate now and figure out payment later. But that wouldn't make for an exciting movie. What do you want, facts or cheap thrills?
John Q is an irresponsible movie that somebody out there might take too seriously. Washington's character gets what he wants through the barrel of a gun after the system throws him for a loop. It looks so easy, taking an emergency room hostage until John's son is placed on an organ recipient's waiting list. Certainly cheaper than the $75,000 down payment demanded by an icy administrator (Anne Heche) and a surgeon played by James Woods for maximum snide effect.
Fear isn't a factor since the real victims, innocent bystanders with their own health problems, sympathize with John's situation. As in Dog Day Afternoon, the streets outside the hospital fill with onlookers who just want to see police officers humiliated by a romanticized renegade.
Cassavetes stacks the deck like a card shark, turning violence and intimidation into justified behavior. He takes isolated cases of HMO abuses and unfeeling caretakers and makes them seem like the norm. James Kearns' screenplay makes each character a mouthpiece for agitprop. The message is clear: Next time you have a medical problem, bring your insurance card and a pistol.
That's too bad, since John Q begins with promise, deftly sketching a dual-income household that can't make ends meet, strained but smiling. Washington makes a great father, a little unnerved by demotions and repossessions, and Kimberly Elise is effective as a barely steady mom. Young Daniel E. Smith is a believable screen kid even when offering his allowance, completing a credible family dynamic.
The emotional pull of these characters enables Cassavetes to sneak in a few hard-luck twists before hysteria sets in. We can believe the initial red tape and emotionless tone of people just doing business when the business is saving lives.
But Cassavetes wants blood, adding a rich white guy who did get a heart transplant, an image-conscious police chief (Ray Liotta) and a vain TV reporter to get your dander up. Nobody, not even the police negotiator (Robert Duvall) doing his job, has any right to stop John from endangering lives.
John Q takes a serious problem and finds only the most irrational solution. The most striking result of the movie was that audience's reaction Monday night, cheering John's violent disrespect for people who are playing by the rules, unfair as they may be sometimes. Cassavetes wants us to believe there's no other way out. He tacks on a footnote that 7,000 people who need life-saving operations this year won't be able to afford them. Let's hope none of them can afford a movie ticket, either.
Grade: C
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Cast: Denzel Washington, Kimberly Elise, James Woods, Robert Duvall, Ray Liotta, Anne Heche, Eddie Griffin, Shawn Hatosy, Daniel E. Smith
Screenplay: James Kearns
Rating: PG-13; violence, profanity
Running time: 118 min.