Extreme Measures [1996] [1997]

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Extreme Measures loses credibility near the climax when it sacrifices its hold on reality, but this entertaining, intelligent thriller effectively applies a formulaic plot to the complicated ethics of medical research. It also gives Hugh Grant an opportunity to break free from lightweight comedy by playing an emergency room surgeon who discovers that a renowned neurologist (Gene Hackman) has been conducting secret experiments on patients. When Grant fails to save a patient whose body later mysteriously disappears from the morgue, his investigation leads to an underground community of healthy homeless people, some of whom have been test subjects in Hackman's revolutionary, but criminal research toward a cure for paralysis. Co-produced by actor-model Elizabeth Hurley and capably directed by Michael Apted, this otherwise conventional thriller rises above its limitations by asking morally complex questions that give its far-fetched plot an extra kick of dramatic impact. --Jeff Shannon

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Synopsis
A young doctor's life and career are threatened when he uncovers the shocking details of a private medical research programme.

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Customer reviews

review by: SRW date: 2007-10-22 rating:
HUGH DUNNIT
It was weird watching Hugh Grant acting as a serious character. I kept waiting for him to dither and mumble, but he did quite well.

Playing the part of an English doctor in an A+E hospital dept. he uncovers a ghoulish plot to use homeless vagrants as medical guinea pigs, by Gene Hackman, who is trying to use brain stem technology to cure victims of paralysis. Grant plays the hero quite well and thankfully doesn't really go down the James Bond route i feared initially.

Good story and well worth a watch.

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review by: The Amazon Reviewer date: 2007-05-05 rating:
Extremely OK
I have hardly seen Hugh Grant is any serious roles, and without being a bumbling hopeless-romantic, and this is a good break away from that stereotyping. He plays Dr. Guy Luthan, the main man of a New York hospital, he may be a little fussy and make difficult decisions, but he is a good doctor. The film by the way starts with two victims of a mysterious experiment, Claude Minkins (Shaun Austin-Olsen) comes to Guy's hospital, and Teddy Dolson (André De Shields) goes missing. Guy is now investigating Claude's mysterious condition for reason of death, and for some reason, all evidence of him or Teddy are not found. The only person who may know something about it would be Dr. Lawrence Myrick (Gene Hackman), who runs a secret research building, where Claude and Teddy escaped. Eventually Guy uncovers that he is taking homeless people to try and find cures for serious conditions, e.g. broken backs. Guy knows that what he is doing is wrong, as he torturing and in some cases murdering these people. Also starring Sarah Jessica Parker as Jodie Trammel, The Green Mile's David Morse as FBI Agent Frank Hare, Sister Act's Bill Nunn as Det. Bob Burke, Shaun Austin-Olsen as Claude Minkins, André De Shields as Teddy Dolson and Spider-Man's J.K. Simmons as Dr. Mingus. The ending is a little hard to handle because when justice is done (accidently), you don't know if it was the right thing to do or not.

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review by: date: 2005-08-24 rating:
whew!
I found the movie really intriguing since it deals with human life. There are two opposing forces in the movie-people who find human creatures, as just mere creatures and people who find it as a sacred and precious gift from above, that need to be respected and cared for. I can see in my own point of view as a Filipino, since Filipinos give importance to one's life.

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review by: date: 2005-06-27 rating:
Extreme Measures
This is another one of those films, which I'd never heard of until it appeared on TV one day, and thought it was bound to be another one of those straight to video little known releases that would be possibly average but in all likelihood, probably worse. To my delight this was thrilling, exciting, thought provoking and generally an all round good movie.

The plot is simple and has been done before in various guises although comparisons with the similarly hospital set "Coma" are easy to draw. Hugh Grant plays English Dr Guy Luthan working at an inner city New York hospital. One of the patients he treats dies in mysterious circumstances, but what is stranger is that the body also disappears. Desperate to discover what is going on under the respectable surface of the hospital he starts to investigate deeper only to find he is set up by people who would rather he didn't dig too deeply and finds himself on drugs charges and suspended from his job.

As I say the story has been done before but it none the less exciting this time round. There is a fantastic scene in the depths of the New York subway system and similarly as good scenes in the clinical spotlessness of the hospital wards.

The finale scene of the film is also worth a mention for the moral dilemma it throws up. Gene Hackman, who can play a mean baddie as well as anyone, gives a surprisingly persuasive argument against ethical medical procedures and there is a part of you who does agree with him. Grant answers with the counter-argument that you know is right, but it doesn't stop the questioning there.

All in all, a great thriller which takes the audience on something more than a shoot 'em up car chase ridden film and actually has the intelligence to pose some questions for late night thinking.


review by: karana23 date: 2005-06-09 rating:
A painfully mediocre thriller.
The prime motivation behind watching this thriller came from its name which reveals that its an adaptation of a Michael Palmer book. Palmer, according to me, is the ultimate in writing medical thrillers with strong medico-ethical issues and if not for anything else, I knew the story was going to rock (this is probably the only Palmer that I haven't read which made me even more curious about the film).

And boy, was I right! The story is the only thing that keeps this otherwise shoddily put together film from being absolutely forgettable. The immensely well spoken Hugh Grant does inject this sincerity and humour to Luthan's character, but all the other characters are neither developed properly nor are performed interestingly. You can so see the I'll-deliver-the-lines-and-buzz-off look on everyone's faces. The production values are shoddy all through and make the film look more like some extended episode of some 80s TV-series. The background score, for most part, is soporific and rarely aware of the tension of the ongoings. The visuals again suffer from lazy editing and except for the opening sequence (which sees two experimental victims running stark naked on a busy road), no special effort has gone into making any shot impressive. Which is really a pity because at the helm of it lies a very relevant premise of evaluating the costs and benefits of testing new medical technology on the humans.

How I wish there was just some more effort on the part of the team to infuse some tension or realism to this otherwise cerebral tale. I'm dead sure Palmer's book packs more punch than this tepid screen adaptation; but even having said that I must conclude that the film does pass muster as a watch-and-forget affair if only for Palmer's story and Grant's performance.

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