EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES : [3/10] : Tom Vaughan : US 10* : 107m : {8/28}

Schmaltzy, phoney-feeling medical weepie plays like a cross between Lorenzo's Oil and Dragons' Den, as a corporate highflyer (Brendan Fraser) teams up with a maverick scientist (Harrison Ford) to find a cure for a terminal disease afflicting two of his three children. 'Inspired by true events' reads the opening caption – and, as usual, what follows lacks inspiration of any sort.
   It's based on Geeta Anand's book The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million–and Bucked the Medical Establishment–in a Quest to Save His Children, a title which is a pretty accurate guide to the movie: note how the priority is on the fundraising feat and the bucking of that dastardly medical establishment, with the saving of the children a poor third.
   The picture starts promisingly enough, with a clear indictment of how medical research is funded in the USA: maverick scientist (an opportunistic composite of numerous different individuals, it turns out) complains that his entire department's annual budget at the University of Nebraska is less than the salary of the institution's football coach.
   And, given that maverick scientist is a countercultural, anti-authoritarian eccentric - he enjoys bass-fishing, driving an old flatbed pickup and listening to the Grateful Dead and Deep Purple while working on his equations (straight-arrow Ford looks sorely uncomfortable in a role which would surely have fit Jeff Bridges like an old moccasin) - it's something of a surprise when Extraordinary Measures turns into a convoluted but impassioned hymn to the joys of venture capitalism.
   Never mind that, as furrow-browed Fraser is informed, "nine out of ten biotechs crash and burn" – the American system of corporate-funded research is shown to be a bit flawed but fundamentally the best way to get results. The script neatly sidesteps the fact that the Fraser character struck it rich when his little biotech company was sold to a much bigger rival in the field for $100m – and that the resulting drug is so costly that it's not covered by the vast majority of American insurance companies.
   In addition to nagging sense that what we're watching is politicised propaganda, a partial view of very complex issues – especially in the context of the current US healthcare debate – Extraordinary Measures is directed in thuddingly dull fashion by Vaughan, the Brit director previously best known for Starter For Ten and What Happens in Vegas.
   Gauzy cinematography and a manipulative, intrusive score give proceedings the old-fashioned feel of a moderately classy TV movie, and whatever edge the story might have possessed is blunted by Vaughan's unimaginative, desperately safe-hands approach.
   Jared Harris (looking like a cross between Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mark E Smith) has some fun as a "bloodless, heartless" corporate drone who - perhaps unsurprisingly, given the picture's ethos, ultimately (and implausibly) turns good-guy. Fans ans of early 80s horror and sci-fi will enjoy spotting David Clellon (from The Thing) and Dee Wallace (from The Howling, ET and Cujo) - though the latter is for some reason restricted to a somewhat insulting one-line role as a waitress. Which just about sums Extraordinary Measures up: decidedly ordinary, by any measure.

Neil Young
23rd February, 2010

 ¦ Empire cinema, Sunderland, UK, 23.Feb.10 (press show)  ¦

* Copyright-dated 2009