DESPERATE MEASURES

REVIEWED BY BRETT WILLIS

Our rating: 2 out of 5

Because of: language, thematic elements

Rated:

This is one of those cop action-dramas where the good guy isn’t completely good, the bad guy isn’t completely bad, and there’s a certain amount of “heart” in between the violent sequences. In the opening sequence, Frank Connor (Andy Garcia) and a buddy, both cops, break into a government facility, illegally access a database, and make good their escape by pulling a gun on a security guard. What is Frank after? Well, he’s a widower. His nine-year-old son Matt (Joseph Cross) needs a bone marrow transplant, and is a very rare HLA type, so Frank is searching normally-inaccessible registries of potential donors. For all his trouble, he finds one match: Peter McCabe (Michael Keaton), an imprisoned multiple murderer and extreme escape risk. McCabe was severely abused as a child, didn’t get beyond 9^th grade, but has an IQ of about 150 and is self-taught in a lot of tekkie stuff.

When Frank visits McCabe and asks him to donate his marrow, McCabe guesses right away how Frank has gotten his name. And he makes Frank admit this, thereby creating a sort of “bond” between them. As McCabe points out, it’s ironic that after all these years of being incarcerated, he now has the chance to kill again, simply by doing nothing. But after initially refusing, McCabe asks to meet with Matt, and then agrees to the procedure, if he gets certain prison privileges restored. Frank has to go over the warden’s head to make that happen. McCabe is really concocting an escape plan. Taken out of solitary and put back in the general population, and with his library privileges restored, he can get drugs (and anti-drugs), and he can use the Internet to study the construction blueprints, floor plans and schematics of the hospital he’ll be taken to. Besides keeping himself in shape by lifting makeshift weights, he deliberately dislocates his thumb. The reason will be apparent soon enough.

Before the procedure, Matt is irradiated to kill his own cancerous bone marrow. In fact, this is done before the caravan carrying McCabe even arrives at the hospital, which isn’t a good idea and is probably not standard practice, although it makes for better drama. Matt is now in danger of infection from routine diseases, and in any case will die in a very short time unless the transplant takes place. Naturally, things don’t go quite as anyone planned. The bone marrow doesn’t get harvested. McCabe is on the loose within the hospital, but is injured and still has to find a way to the outside. McCabe leaves dead and wounded in his wake. Frank must balance his duties as a cop with his fatherly concern for Matt (because as soon as McCabe dies, his marrow becomes useless). It’s a classic three-corner fight.  McCabe wants out. All the cops except Frank will take McCabe down dead or alive, per their normal training. Frank needs to keep McCabe alive, so he bounces back and forth between trying to capture him and protecting him from the other cops.

There are deaths and injuries by firearms, explosions and fire. Once McCabe starts to escape, there’s a great deal of tension throughout, enhanced by a scary music score. There’s a good deal of profanity. Probably a dozen f-words, and all the other miscellaneous vulgarities. In a scene where young Matt is alone with the escaping McCabe, Matt whacks McCabe with an iron bar and also calls him a name. There’s almost no sexual content.  The most notable moment occurs when McCabe holds Dr. Hawkins (Marcia Gay Harden) hostage, has her face shoved up against a wall, makes a remark to the effect that he hasn’t been with a woman in a long time but he’s trying to be a gentleman, and then reaches around her, into the breast pocket of her scrubs...but just pulls out a pack of cigarettes. It looks like McCabe actually puts the cigarettes into her pocket, then immediately pulls them out again. That doesn’t make any sense. But the alternative is that they were already there, which doesn’t make sense either. Trying overly-hard to decipher this scene would be a waste of brainpower. Obviously it’s intended to be somewhat suggestive.

The other content issue is that most of the audience will identify with Frank, and will therefore be asking themselves “What would I have done in this situation?”  f course the situation is extremely contrived. Again, mostly a waste of brainpower. It is important, though, that our commitment to do the right thing applies in all reasonable situations, not just the easy ones. Frank opened the film with an illegal act, and it only goes downhill from there. During the cat-and-mouse with McCabe, Frank’s supervisor asks him “How many people have to die so that your son can live?” Pure action film buffs will not like this film, because there are tender father-son scenes. Matt calmly accepts the fact that he will probably die, while Frank does not accept this and is committed to doing everything he can. Likewise, many fans of intense drama will never get to see and enjoy these scenes, because they’re interspersed with scenes of explosions and car chases.

Although McCabe was using the transplant as a ploy to escape, he does at times show a flash of humanity.  e seems to feel a kinship with Matt, and indicates to him that if the bone marrow harvesting hadn’t interfered with his other plans, he’d have done it. Keaton has done similar material before. In One Good Cop, he was the “good guy” cop who had to care for his partner’s three orphaned daughters, while at the same time skirting the law in order to take down the drug dealer who was ultimately responsible for his partner’s death. Whether playing a good guy or a bad guy, he has an amazing acting range. In this film, he comes across as credible. Joseph cross is very good as well. My overall impression of the film? Cheesy. Far-fetched. More vulgar than it needed to be. And yet, for a specialized audience who, like myself, enjoys both action and drama, it has a certain appeal.

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