Physician Heal Thyself.
It's a movie for adults. There is no secret demonic conspiracy or medical cover-up or madman trying to spread a virus that will kill every man taller than he is.Instead we have an ordinary internist at a big hospital, the properly taciturn Orland Bloom, who becomes so attracted to a young woman who is his patient that he goes to extraordinary lengths to keep her in the hospital. His plan to keep her in the hospital succeeds, but her winding up in the morgue is extempore.
Well, Bloom is a good doctor with an otherwise unimpeachable reputation and her death affects him deeply. Ridden with guilt, he's then approached by a vulgar orderly who has found the deceased's diary outlining much of what's been going on. The impertinent orderly, Michael Peña, demands a constant supply of dope from the doctor who, when he discovers that the supply must be unending, slips the arrogant underling a dose of KCN. That's potassium cyanide. I happen to remember it because late one night I released some of the gas when I worked in a tool and die shop, just out of curiosity. It didn't smell like almonds, but like peaches. The next day the boss carried on about the equipment somehow having gotten rustier overnight.
I couldn't make out what other shenanigans the doc was up to. (By this time, his term of reference has been reduced in social value from "the good doctor" to "doctor" to just plain "doc".) Aside from the dope, I did notice him snatch a vial or two of something from the supply room, and he fiddled around the labels on some Petri plates -- a very naughty thing to do, as I recall. I don't claim to know much about medicine but I know what I like.
At any rate, it was a relief to watch a movie in which no one's head gets twisted off, there is no high-speed pursuit ending in a cataclysm, and no half-caste zombies. Orlando Bloom is excellent in the role of the young, earnest, enthralled physician. He has all the expressiveness of a tax auditor. He takes his work and his ethics seriously. If only he hadn't fallen for that pretty blond, Riley Keough, with the woeful voice. She's not even phenomenally beautiful, but rather her appeal lies in the fact that she projects the trust, vulnerability, and innocence of a child. Rob Morrow is memorable in a small part.
Lance Daly's direction is straightforward and allows us to see what's going on. The camera does not wobble, neither does it swish pan. There are, though, probably too many huge close ups for a movie made in this classic style. It is, after all, not a TV movie but a feature film designed to be seen in theaters, and who needs J. K. Simmons' head to be sixteen feet tall?
Even the title is nicely apt: "the good doctor," ironic and yet descriptive. Bloom really IS a good doctor, except that he's responsible for one accidental death and one deliberate murder. Doctors always get away with murder. A good friend, who is a doctor, was always late for appointments because he was disorganized, but when he rushed into the examining room, the patiently waiting patient would apologize to HIM because he knew how busy doctors were. The rest of us aren't so lucky.
score 7/10
rmax304823 15 September 2013
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2870303/35959
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