~ ~ Imagine yourself in the situation.
Your young child is diagnosed with a fatal heart condition. (or any other type of fatal condition you care to think of) You’re only working part-time because of the economic climate, your car has just been repossessed, and it’s going to be a close call whether or not you can meet the next month’s rent/mortgage.
You then discover that your company has downgraded your medical insurance, (without your knowledge) and that the insurance will only pay the first $20K of the required $250K for the life saving operation (heart transplant) that your child needs in order to survive.
That’s what I call a fairly desperate situation, but it’s a unpalatable reality to many lowly paid workers in the United States, where the level of medical care you receive is dictated not by your need, but by the size of your bank balance, or the level of private medical insurance that you hold.
It’s this theme that forms the storyline in the movie “John Q”, starring the highly talented American actor Denzel Washington, and directed by actor turned director Nick Cassavetes.

~ ~ John Q resorts to every measure known to man in order to raise the necessary money, appealing to his medical insurance company, his employers, his friends, the media, state aid, his Church, (he’s a committed Christian) and finally selling of all of his personal possessions for a fraction of their true value in a vain attempt to raise the required capital.
Eventually, push comes to shove, and he’s informed by his now almost demented wife that young Mikey is about to be discharged from the hospital, and quite literally sent home to die.
This is the final indignity for John Q, and he decides to take matters into his own hands, taking over the emergency room of the hospital at gunpoint in a final, desperate attempt to somehow break down the layers of unfeeling indifference that has doomed his beloved son to an untimely death.

~ ~ I thoroughly enjoyed this excellent, and very thought provoking, movie.
However, I have to admit upfront that I would quite literally watch a DVD of Denzel Washington watching paint dry, so highly do I rate him as an actor. His performance in this film is far removed from his Oscar winning performance as Detective Alonzo Harris in the movie “Training Days”, but in this author’s opinion, equally as compelling, although it is hardly likely to gain him any further kudos, praise or Oscars from the Academy.
Robert Duvall plays the part of the old, grizzled hostage negotiator Lt. Frank Grimes superbly. Duvall is an actor (now in his early seventies) who in my opinion has never truly garnished the honours he so richly deserves for his many and varied roles over a long and distinguished acting career. A western mini-series (made for TV) called “Lonesome Dove” from the late 1980’s is still one of my favourite ‘cowboy and injun’ flicks of all time.
And John Wood’s performance as the somewhat cynical and cash-motivated heart surgeon, Dr. Raymond Turner, is brilliant, with some of the dialogue between himself and John Q in the hostage situation being very insightful as to the current state of play in the medical world in America. (It’s a VERY different role from the vampire hunter he played recently in John Carpenter’s “Vampires”, where he was hell bent on driving stakes through hearts, instead of healing them!)
Granted, some of the characters are somewhat clichéd. Ray Liotta is wasted as the politically driven Chief of Police Monroe, and gives a very wooden performance. Personally, I kept seeing him with the top of his skull removed (from the Hannibal Lector movie, Hannibal) throughout the movie.
But overall the cast and crew have put together an accomplished and very different film.

DVD Extras