MEDICINE MAN
A film review by Greg James
Copyright 1992 Greg James
MEDICINE MAN Directed by John McTiernan
It has been said on the net that the Sean Connery movie HIGHLANDER 2 was better than a sucking chest wound. Well, Bond has done it again, and his new movie, MEDICINE MAN, is better than a double root canal. I've had one. I know.
MEDICINE MAN is essentially a two-person show. Sean Connery (a bagful of James Bond movies, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, HIGHLANDER) plays Dr. Robert Campbell, a biochemist working for a drug company in the deepest Brazilian Amazon rain forest. He's been there for six years, and the drug company wants to know what he's up to, so they send Dr. Rae Crane (Lorraine Bracco -- GOODFELLAS) to find. It turns out that he's found a cure for cancer. The only problem is, he can't remember how he did it.
The rest of the film is classic buddy-film material -- the two protagonists can't stand each other, but are unified in their struggle to recover the formulation process before the deforestation takes away their laboratory. Drunken bonding scene, humanistic bonding scene, hair-raising scenes of peril and bonding, eventual respect and climax resolution. Ho hum.
It boggles my mind how badly this film was done. The script is so inane, it should have been condensed into a one-hour made-for-TV-movie with commercials instead of being a two-hour slog. Tom Schulman, who is capable of much better work (DEAD POET'S SOCIETY) gets the blame for this one. The natives are reduced to pidgin English, and then we're given subtitles for even this. The dialogue is forced, stilted and clipped, and I remain unconvinced that two people ever talk to each other like this. Who wrote the dialogue, Sylvester Stallone?
The acting couldn't have saved this movie even if it was good, which it isn't. Connery plays the same grizzled stubborn old veteran he always plays, and Bracco gives us nothing but a lacklustre hard-line scientist front, even when she's supposed to be experiencing bone-crushing exhaustion or numbing self-doubt. On the other hand, Bracco is given a number of peek-a-boo body shots: Dr. Crane in a bra, Dr. Crane bathing nude underwater, Dr. Crane splayed against a rock, Dr. Crane's leg in a hammock. These cheap attempts at sex appeal are so artificial as to be laughable if they weren't so blatantly so exploitive.
The direction is appallingly bad in places. There are cuts in the action which leave the audience wondering whether the camera operator suddenly took a restroom break. There is dialogue where, when the scene switches to the other person, the original speaker doesn't move her mouth with the end of her line. The scenery is nice, though that's only due to the lush Mexican rain forest location as opposed to any inspired camera work.
MEDICINE MAN is shoddy and sloppy. If it weren't for my role as a reviewer, I would have left early. Your eight bucks would be better spent on Lotto 6/49 tickets. Sean Connery should take this film, bundle it with HIGHLANDER 2: THE QUICKENING, throw them into a volcano and hope that everyone soon forgets they ever existed.
-- Greg James greg@cpsc.ucalgary.ca
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews