John Q

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This one takes me back to around the middle of last year, when a coworker recommended it. It took me a while to get around to it, but I promised to check it out and review it on my next round of "Reader's Suggestions", and I finally made it. It was recommended as a solid Denzel movie after I brought up the fact that I find him to be one of the all-time greats, but there's still a lot of his material I haven't seen yet (which may lead me to a Denzel month soon for "Catching Up").

Anyway, something a lot of people don't know about me is that before watching almost any movie, I check out Rotten Tomatoes just to get an idea of the movie's quality towards critics and general audiences alike. Be it the critic meter or the fan meter, one is almost always higher than the other, but this actually caught me totally off-guard. The critics give it a measly 23%, but the audience seems to appreciate it as generously as 78%. This means it averages out at almost exactly 50/50, and it was very clear that it was a film I'd be analyzing from both perspectives - which honestly makes things much more fun.

John Quincy Archibald (Denzel Washington) is a factory worker in Chicago, living with his wife, Denise (Kimberly Elise) and son, Michael (Daniel E. Smith). The couple are in the midst of some financial trouble when suddenly, during a little league baseball game, Michael collapses. After rushing to the hospital, John and Denise learn that Michael's heat is wearing out, and he will need a heart transplant in order to survive. The procedure will cost $250,000, with a required down payment of $75,000 just to get Michael on the organ recipient list. To make matters worse, John further learns that his job has changed health insurance policies, no longer covering him for his son's surgery.

When desperate times call for desperate measures, a spark is ignited by Denise when she tells John to do what he needs to do in order to get Michael on the list. This leads to John confronting the hospital staff at gunpoint, and forming a whole hostage situation. His demands are quite plain and simple; to get his son on the list. But with his stand-off with negotiator, Lt. Frank Grimes (Robert Duvall) and police chief Gus Monroe (Ray Liotta) come the whole documentary of 'Sicko' in which the film digs into the unfair practices of the American Health Care system. In that sense, it may be seen as a bit preachy. But I can't say I don't empathize with the whole situation, either. The film represents the desperate voice crying out through it all, pleading for help. Imagine being told "you don't have enough money, so your son is out of options and won't get to live" - I don't even have kids and that hurts.

Going back to looking at those Tomatometers, let's first take a look at the critical side of things. I think I understand a lot of the criticisms behind it, because I have a few of them, myself. For one, it's a movie that relies on tugging at your heartstrings. I don't tend to mind that as much as others, but I do recognize it. It goes to extremes even beyond the poor kid who is slowly dying in the background. I think it also clearly takes its "Q"s from other movies too, for instance I saw some 'Dog Day Afternoon' with the crowd cheering on the gunman, agreeing with his purpose. Besides that, it is kind of just another hostage movie; desperate man takes hostages and demands things while a celebrity negotiator tries to talk him down.

On the other side of things, there's still something likable about this, and level out a lot of that criticism. For starters, there's just Denzel, himself, and that's all you really need. This is a guy who just oozes charm in whatever he's doing, even if he's being an asshole. He's one of those actors that really adds "star power" to a movie in a very real sense; perhaps because most of the time he sticks to reality, and is therefore more relatable than an actor who dabbles in fantasy or sci-fi. Otherwise, I appreciate the film's very real statement, and they use the extreme of their young dying boy for the purposes of standing out and asking "what if this was you?" Where some see it as too much, I see it as the message the film is trying to get across, and the more personal it is, the more effective it is. I appreciated what the film was, I'm glad I saw it, but it's also not something I'd rush to see a second time. Landing on the Tomatometer, I might end up more on the fans side, but while understanding the critic's perspective. Where do you land?

3/5

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