Extreme Measures (1996)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Powerful

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

***SPOILERS*** Overlooked at the time of its released back in 1996 the movie "Extreame Measures" like a fine wine seems to get better with each viewing. More then just your average hospital drama the movies thought-provoking premise of sacrificing the few to save the many hunts you as well as its star Hugh Grant, as the overly conscientious Doctor Guy Luthan, long after its shocking and mind numbing ending sequence.Working grueling 90 hours weeks at the Gramancy General Hospitals emergency ward in New York City Dr. Luthan has seen everything there is to see in people being treated there. Thats until one evening when he comes across homeless and naked Claude Minkins, Shaun Austin-Olsen, who was found roaming the streets on NYC with nothing on but a plastic sheet. Minkins seems to have every illness known to medical science and before he can be treated he suffers what's called a complete metabolic meltdown dying right there in his hospital bed! Trying to find out the cause of Minkins death Dr. Luthan hits a stone wall in that his body has mysteriously disappeared, or was stolen, from the hospitals morgue.Told to forget about the now missing Minkins by his boss Dr. Jeff Marko, Paul Guilfoyle, Dr. Luthan instead tries to track down Minkins' fellow homeless friend Teddy Dolson, Andre De Shields, who's name Minkins spurted out just before he suddenly passed away. As things turned out Dr. Luthan finds out that both Minkins and Dolson were treated at the Riverside Neurological Center by non other then the famed and world renowned neurologist Dr. Lawrence Myrick, Gene Hackman. What's even more puzzling to the curious Dr. Luthan is that both Minkins and Dolson's medical records have completely disappeared from the hospital's record files!As Dr. Luthan gets closer to the truth behind what happened to both Minkins and his friend Dolson, who's still out loose on the streets, strange things start to happen to him. His apartment is broken into by someone who has cocaine planted there to have Dr. Luthan both discredited and disbarred from practicing medicine. Knowing that he's sitting on top of a volcano that's about to blow Dr. Luthan with the help of one of his patients the street wise Bobby, John Toles Bey, tracks down the place where both Minkins and Dolson were staying before they ended up at Riverdale Neurological Center! In the underground tunnels in and around Grand Central Center Station with their fellow homeless known as "Mole People". While all this is happening Dr. Myrick has sent out two of his goons FBI Agent Hare, David Morse, and NYPD Detective Berke, Bill Nunn, to stop Dr. Luthan from finding out the reasons behind Minkins and Dolson medical conditions. If it ever came out what secret experiments Dr. Myrick was preforming at the center it would either put him behind bars for the rest of his life or ironically would save the lives of untold thousands of persons if they, with human beings used as guanine pigs, are proved successful!***SPOILERS*** Despite being the villain in the movie you just can't be that critical of Dr. Myrick's motives. What Dr. Myrick is doing in his illegal experiments is trying to save lives by implanting the nerve cells of helpless and in many cases terminally ill homeless people into the spines of the cripples patients he's treating at his hospital. Eariler in the movie Dr. Luthan came across the same dilemma that Dr. Myrick faces, in saving one person at the expense of another, and ended up doing in a split second decision the exact same thing that Dr. Myrick has been doing without a second thought for the last couple of years! It's that disturbing fact on Dr. Luthans part that has him, at the end of the film, continue Dr. Myrick's work despite his misgivings about it!***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Also in the movie is a homely looking, before she made it big on HBO's Sex in the City, Sarah Jessica Parker as Dr. Luthan's both friend and assistant nurse Jodie Trannel. Jodie as it later turned wasn't exactly as sympathetic to her friend Dr. Luthan's cause as she at first appeared to have been. As Dr. Luthan got closer to what was behind Dr. Myrick's secret experiments he was soon to find out that Jodie was somehow connected to them in a both major and family-like way!

In this movie, Hugh Grant proves he can do so much more than romantic comedies. I could easily picture him in one of the hospital shows on TV. Gene Hackman is good too, but David Morse - a personal favorite - is surprisingly stiff and boring. Sarah Jessica Parker isn't even worth mentioning.So what can I say about the plot? Well, the beginning is interesting, and a little spooky. After that a quick cut to the hospital where we reveal the most idiotic name anyone could have ever thought of. I mean, Guy Luthan?? Despite the intriguing plot, it eventually stretches too far and becomes quite ridiculos. And then, as we enter the under ground, my suffering is beyond belief. A very fuzzy climax where David Morse's lack of enthusiasm becomes even more obvious. This movie could have been a lot better if it hadn't made all those mistakes that could have been avoided so easily. Although, it was fun to see Hugh Grant's rom com character peek out in this mildly efficient thriller - which doesn't make his acting worse but adds sympathy to his character and makes him more likable.

I am a big fan of House because of the weekly dilemmas posed. Should we sacrifice a few for the benefit of the many is a question posed in this thriller with J.K. Simmons, Hugh Grant, Gene Hackman, and Sarah Jessica Parker.Grant, as a doctor who uncovers some shady goings on is out of his usual element and, because of that, it really works well. And, he always seems to have some luscious woman around - this time Sarah Jessica Parker.Hackman is superb as Grant's nemesis and really makes this a movie worth watching.

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. Good directing from The World Is Not Enough director Michael Apted. Good!