White Coats (2006)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Intern Academy (2004): Dir: Dave Thomas / Cast: Dave Thomas, Dan Aykroyd, David Foley, Maury Chaykin, Carly Pope: Gross out comedy about interns completing training under horrid conditions. Humor ranges from a fight using human organs, to a doll in someone's anal track. It dwells on difficulties based on experience. The humour is vulgar and seems pitched at the lowest common denominator. Screenplay had potential but the third act goes sour with sentimentalism, which is almost always a deal killer in comedies. Dave Thomas directs and stars as the head doctor bent on failing the interns. As director he does have a sense of timing and originality but the characters are all one note types that never elevate beyond their initial flaws. Dan Aykroyd runs the hospital by selling equipment to pay salaries. Dave Foley plays an uptight surgeon. Maury Chaykin plays an instructor with a speech impairment. There are several veteran comedians who are somewhat underused that might have livened things up had the material been stronger. Given more focus they could have been interesting but they are just talented comedians thrown into material that is in worse shape then the patients that enter their hospital. It works only on its satire of medicine but as a story it fails miserably in terms of creating personalities as well as a plot that needs more than surgery to bring life to its pathetic existence. Score: 6 / 10

We might well ask why anyone bothered to make INTERN ACADEMY when we have SCRUBS, but so be it. Dave Thomas, formerly of SCTV, directed and costars. Dan Ackroyd is also aboard in a small role, along with Dave Foley, late of KIDS IN THE HALL. A bunch of generic young interns get a taste of hospital life at a crumbling facility. Typical hijinks ensue, including a bawdy Christmas party and an incredibly gross organ fight that ends with something very wet and very squishy splattering all over Thomas' face. The climax is a direct steal from POLICE ACADEMY, but that's OK, too. The actors playing the interns are likable enough, and the females in the cast are all drop-dead gorgeous and quick to get drunk and down and dirty and sometimes even naked (which is the way I remember my student years working as an orderly at a mid-size hospital). INTERN ACADEMY, called WHITE COATS on TV, definitely is no SCRUBS. But it will do in a pinch. It's like watching one of those mindless winter ski movies, especially the one with Lee Majors.

It is a big insult to Scrubs to even say that there are similarities. Scrubs has quality writing and quality acting, which are both SO lacking in this movie. It's as if Dave Thomas opened a medical book and tried to piece together a comedy from it. Does that even sound funny? NO! As a doctor, the medical inaccuracies were mind numbing to me. Do you want your surgeon to NOT wear a mask while operating? Yeah, let's get a little spit on that heart to shine it up. Heck, do you think it even feasible for a NON-surgical intern to magically do brain surgery? Something that takes at least 7 years for a neurosurgeon to master? And no, it is NOT an EKG in the operating room, it's a freakin' HEART MONITOR! Do a little homework and be creative with how you present those urban legends! Really, I can forgive medical errors from non-medical writers, but aside from that, this was just a stupid movie. I'd rather watch Dude Where's My Car again!

First let me say, I'm a big fan of SCTV, Kids in the Hall, Newsradio etc. I think Dave Foley, Dave Thomas and Dan Akroyd are very talented comedians, and I have enjoyed most, if not all, of their work up until now (see "The Wrong Guy"). I'm a proud Canadian because, in part, of the contribution these people have made to the entertainment industry in general.However, this film is a black spot on their collective record. People will no doubt think that "I didn't get it", or "I'm not taking it in the spirit it was intended". This couldn't be farther from the truth.Sadly, this was quite possibly one of the worst films I have ever seen, and one of the very few I have ever walked out of. I went to it on a free pass, so I'm not even angry that it cost me money. I didn't walk out of it on the grounds that I was offended or upset but because I couldn't convince myself that there was any reason to stay. Normally, if a movie is poor, I would sit through it just to "see how it ends". In this case, because of a complete lack of plot, there simply was no reason for this film to exist. Juvenile humour and gags so predictable it felt like you'd watched this as a 12 year old, and were viewing it for a second time as an adult. Cardboard performances of 'cue card' dialogue reminiscent of a failing SNL skit. Interspersed with suddenly serious and gory bits of "ER" action. I could go on, but I've already put more thought and writing effort into this comment than went into the film. Stay away from this rotting pile of exploded colostomy bags, for the sake of the children.....