Desperate Measures

Here's an underrated suspense movie that's good. It's "good" in that fact it delivers what it promises: suspense. I'm sure there are a number of holes in this far-fetched tale but it's fun to watch nevertheless.

Michael Keaton is almost mesmerizing in his role as the sick killer. There is some decent action in here, too, but suspense is the name of this game. Once you've started in, it's very difficult to put down. Andy Garcia and Marcia Gay Hayden turn in solid performances as well.

It was nice to see a tough-but-loving father (Garcia) go to any lengths to save his kid. Speaking of the kid (Joseph Cross), they show this very little soft-spoken boy that is trying be saved and all of sudden he says the word "a-hole." What is the purpose of inserting that? Only in the world of film.

Barbet Schroeder doesn't fare well in this directorial attempt. "Desperate Measures" is a film that has been seen in other forms before, better made. The screen play by David Klass doesn't make sense at all.

With that out of the way, this hospital thriller is fun to watch because of the intensity of both lead men performances. Michael Keaton, the bad guy in this film, shows an evil side not found in any of his performances before. He is equally matched by Andy Garcia, not one of our favorite actors. Mr. Garcia tends to shout and get incomprehensible at the most dramatic moments.

The last sequences of the film pack a lot of action, and once we have settled back to accept the silliness of the whole thing, we go for the ride. The chase and bridge scenes are staged well; they'll keep the viewer glued to the screen.

Watch Michael Keaton as we haven't seen him before.

Andy Garcia is the "hero" in this predictable and ludicrous film. He plays Conner, a cop with a son who needs a bone marrow transplant to stay alive. Enter Michael Keaton as McCabe, a mad psychopathic criminal genius (aren't they all?) whose bone marrow is a perfect match. What follows is an irritating battle of wits between Conner and McCabe, who decides he'd like to bust outta the hospital using nothing but a half-swallowed ampoule of a magical elixir, a dislocated thumb and a cigarette lighter flint. Move over MacGuyver.

Garcia is particularly annoying as actor and character. His character is devoted to his son. Nothing wrong with that. Unless your devotion for your son means that EVERYONE ELSE'S life is meaningless and expendable. As McCabe tries to escape from the hospital Conner has to save McCabe's life many times because once dead, his bone marrow is no longer useful. Conner causes a cop to get shot as well as motorway carnage in his attempts to capture McCabe unharmed. I got increasingly more angry watching Garcia as Conner risk everyone he comes into contact with so that his son may have a chance of living. What about the rest of us? Don't we deserve a chance at life too? The Conner character seems to be rooted in the maverick cop tradition, playing by his own rules and deciding what is and isn't right. It's a world where a bully makes the rules and you follow them or face the consequences. Something along the lines of what happened in Germany in the Thirties...

Garcia as actor is annoying to the extreme, spending most of the film tearing about the place in a semi-crouch with one arm stiff by his side for some reason. He trots out his usual bits of actor's business that appear in most Garcia films. He does the scene where he grabs someone's head in both of his hands and speaks/shouts right into their face. He does the scene where he explosively loses he temper and kicks some furniture only to immediately regain control of himself and instantly become the ice-man. He does the scene where he shouts in anger at the top of his lungs, while his face looks as if he has just spent an afternoon staring at the test card. You know the stuff. We've seen it all before.

The film goes on for far too long and credibility is stretched time and again until even the densest viewer's intelligence is insulted. We're encouraged to sympathise with the Garcia character: his wife is dead, his son's dying, he's a cop, he's pretty, he is a devoted father etc etc, but really, all he is, is a self-centred fascist bully.

Keaton has to make flesh a one dimensional cliché of a character and he has a go but is on a losing wicket from the outset. How can you put a new and imaginative slant on the stock Mad Criminal Genius character? And Barbet Schroeder, what were you thinking? From the classic Barfly to this? Pity...

Well-crafted but overly contrived thriller about a man driven to desperate means to try and save his dying son. García is convincing as a San Francisco cop who's forced to choose between doing his job and being a good father when he discovers that his ill son can be saved with a bone marrow transplant. The only compatible donor: imprisoned convict and multiple murderer Keaton (in a cunning performance). The story is intriguing, and there are plenty of good performances, but the script just becomes more and more far-fetched as it goes along. Watchable thanks to the talented cast, and a witty cat-and-mouse game between the two leads. **

Many reviewers have mentioned "cat and mouse games." I think what they mean is that everybody seems to be pursuing everybody else and nobody ever stops to take a breath, including the viewer.

Garcia's nine-year-old boy has leukemia and his life can be saved only by a bone marrow transplant from a compatible donor. Only one such donor is available and he's a lifelong murderer with an IQ of 150. That means he's eligible for MENSA but I doubt they have a chapter in the San Francisco prison system.

San Francisco doesn't have a hospital like this one either. It's the emptiest, darkest hospital you've ever imagined, and it's full of laundry chutes, steam pipes, cross-highway walkways, underground tunnels, and varied niches. If you had to characterize the movie with one still shot, there would be a man pressed against a brick wall, next to a corner, forearm cocked upward, pistol in hand. After evacuation the hospital is nothing more than a gray gaunt shell.

There's that kid, too. Kids are usually a big nuisance in a movie, but this one manages to get by -- no more than that. The kid, Garcia's son, is kidnapped by escaped killer Michael Keaton. He's a strong, brave kid despite his leukemia and we can see the bond between him and Keaton in the offing.

Andy Garcia's character is the most complex because he's torn between two allegiances -- his son and the values of the society that both he and his son are members of. Would you let your child die or would you rather save his life by loosing a killer on the city street? You see what I mean? Keaton's not bad, by the way. I mean, his character is pure evil until his redemption but Keaton's performance is pretty good. He plays the villain as mean, not suave. He's not given any unique traits but that's the writers' problem, not the actors.

It's a curious coincidence but when Keaton first begins to make demands on the corrections officers in return for agreeing to the transplant, he complains that the cigarettes he's given are stale. He and I worked in a movie together, the unforgettable Whatever It Was. I was a bar tender and Keaton was a customer and when the cameras weren't rolling he examined a pack of Property Department cigarettes on the bar and asked if they were stale. "Only if you call a year old 'stale,'" I said.

Little use is made of the Bay Area locations. Nobody hangs by a thread from the Golden Gate bridge or races through Chinatown. Not until the end, anyway, when there is an explosion of action on highways and bridges.

Very little of the story is actually plausible and if constant tension is your thing then your thing is congruent with this movie.