DESPERATE MEASURES
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. TriStar Pictures/Mandalay Entertainment Director: Barbet Schroeder Writer: David Klass Cast: Michael Keaton, Andy Garcia, Marcia Gay Harden, Brian Cox
In the movie "Amistad," John Quincy Adams states in his big monologue that there is nothing a man would not do to regain his freedom. Peter McCabe (Michael Keaton), the superbly played villain in "Desperate Measures," proves it. Planning an escape while serving a sentence of life without parole with a good deal of time in solitary confinement, this killer has the guts to do things to his body that make some audience members actually sympathize with him. He dislocates his thumb, swallows a vial of a drug designed to counteract another drug, takes a bullet in his leg, and slashes himself up a bit on a barbed wire fence. As cynical and apparently unfeeling as he is, he has a weak spot in his heart for two people: one is nine-year-old lad, Mattew Conner (Joseph Cross) who is dying of leukemia; the other is the boy's father, police detective Frank Conner (Andy Garcia), with whom he connects as a man who, like McCabe, will do anything to realize his goal.
"Desperate Measures" has frequent moments of tension, putting the audience often at the edge of their seats despite the number of time we've all seen the usual accoutrements of action-adventure films. We are treated to the blowing up of a bridge linking two buildings of a hospital, some shoot-ups involving the murder of additional people by McCabe, heroism by a doctor (Marcia Gay Harden) who is struggling to save the life of a small, intelligent boy, and a seemingly endless chase conducted within the corridors of a big city hospital. Filmed in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the movie, directed by Barbet Schroeder ("Kiss of Death," "Before and After"), deals with a cop who seeks the bone marrow of a deadly criminal to save the life of his leukemia-riddled boy--the one person whom a computer database turns up as possessing a perfect match. Conner, who obviously has great love for his son, is perfectly willing to violate the law himself, by breaking into a central database in order to locate a match, and then, by ruthlessly allowing several people in the hospital to be shot by this rogue rather than allow the man to die.
Schroeder is toying with a fascinating idea: that there is good and bad in each of us, that while an officer of the law-- heck--even a country's president--may do things that would not pass muster with Mother Teresa, likewise the most seemingly hardened criminal has a recognizable human side.
Even while granting the originality of scripter David Klass's story--the determination of an otherwise honest man to break every law if his actions will keep his son alive--the real surprise of the movie is Michael Keaton. Granted: this performer, who has consistently turned in professional work in comic roles, has shown a serious side in films like "Clean and Sober." But never before has Keaton so successfully portrayed a guy who is absolutely ruthless, one whose 150+ I.Q. gives him an intelligence and ability to make multiple escapes and yet recognize so clearly the bond he shares with the nine-year-old boy and the child's dad. Keaton is so good in his role that for the one hundred minutes' running time of the movie, you'll virtually forget that you've seen him in fluff like "Batman" and hilarious spoofs like "Mr. Mom." He is ably backed up by Andy Garcia who gets his audience to lose some sympathy for his character despite the nobility of his cause, and by newcomer Joseph Cross as the traditional movie cute-kid who elicits our compassion for his bravery in facing the possibility of death. Rated R. Running Time: 100 minutes. (C) 1998 Harvey Karten
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