Rating: 7/10
Review date: April 25, 2002
This movie features another dazzling performance from Denzel Washington (who won the latest Oscar in case you don’t know). Washington stars as an average middle-class worker whose son is in need of a heart transplant. He doesn’t have enough money to pay for the surgery yet the hospital board and his insurance companies refuse to help. On top of all that is his wife (Kimberly Elise) who is also very desperate and this ultimately causes John Q. (Denzel Washington) to take matters into his own hands.
Regardless of Washington’s great performance in this movie, it fails to deliver a really gripping tension that the movie should have deserved in the first place. Some of the characters are too stereotypical and maybe a bit too extreme which make it seems a little bit unbelievable at times (although this could also happen in real life). For example, Anna Heche’s role as the hospital director took a really dramatic shift towards the end of the movie which is quite hard to comprehend.
However, John Q. would have been a great movie if the director had balanced the tension of the situation with the character developments which ultimately cause this movie to sway more towards the drama genre. Regardless of that slight mistake, the movie is quite sad (I find my tears rolling when Denzel was talking to his son near the end) partly due to Denzel’s acting as well as the situation which managed to draw the audience into backing Denzel all the way to the end.
The ending is a bit disappointing as it is rather weak considering the building tension that leads up to the climax. Overall, John Q. is an average movie which could have been better if the action had been balanced with the dramatic side of the characters. The ending also could have been developed more but all these short-giving doesn’t take away from the movie that much since it’s still a solid attempt to convey the extent that a human being would go to save their loved one.
Memorable quote: “I’m not going to bury my son… My son is going to bury me!”
-Denzel Washington as John Q.-
(c) 2002 Martin Taidy