It’s sometimes easy to forget the value of a good performance.
Movie after movie goes by and so do the faces that occupy them. It’s the value of those faces that begin to change. After all, Hugh Grant did good work in About a Boy but slept through Music and Lyrics. Nic Cage makes Ghost Rider and Leaving Las Vegas, Keanu Reeves is every which way but loose and even Tom Hanks makes those Robert Langdon films. Hell, even Meryl Streep trips up in Heartburn and Death Becomes Her. Wasn’t it merely director Marc Forster who got that Oscar-winning turn out of the generally underwhelming Halle Berry?
With enough time (and enough mediocre films with mediocre performances), the argument that actors are overpaid and, more importantly, overappreciated seems like less of an argument than a point of fact. The way of the world.
And one would wager that this is the sole reason to pay good money to see CBS Films’ Extraordinary Measures, a practice in viewership patience so great it defies the most lackluster of expectations. From the uninspired directing (Tom Vaughn) to the filtered, pandering dialogue (Robert Nelson Jacobs) to the jilted editing of veteran Anne V. Coates (one expects this may not be all her fault, the coverage appears limited at best), this is a “based on a true story” tearjerker with “issues” jumping abruptly to the surface of a tired narrative previously tackled in more ambitious films like George Miller’s Lorenzo’s Oil. It’s hard to imagine what exactly CBS Chief Executive Les Moonves tweaked in the film, as he reportedly rearranged scenes and re-cut sequences.
One thing’s for certain: he did not tweak Harrison Ford, who’s turn as the visionary Dr. Robert Stonehill is the single saving grace of the film. Never before has the movie star been needed more. Sure, he was great as Dr. Henry Jones and President Jim Marshall and that Solo guy and Jack Ryan, but the company he kept was equally great.
Ford’s alone in this one. Brendan Fraser plays determined father John Crowley with an awkward optimism reminiscent of Mark Walhberg’s recent fatherly misstep in The Lovely Bones. It’s simply not the right role for the actor, who entertains the lights out in fun family fare like Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3-D.
Not that it’s not an optimistic story: a father (Crowley) devotes his life and work to the unorthodox medical theories of one doctor (Stonehill) in order to find a suitable treatment for the fatal Pompe disease, which two of his three children have.
It’s humbling stuff, and will remind many of last year’s The Blind Side, which tackles different issues much in the same way.
Unfortunately, the only issue completely realized in Extraordinary Measures is Crowley’s persistence in saving his children. There are moments of interest in the inner-workings of his trials which comment on our current Healthcare system and the conflicting sides (business vs. research) of privatized medicine, but they quickly fade into the distance to make room for another heartwarming family moment or heartbreaking plot turn.
Stonehill is the heart and soul of the film. Ford plays the doctor’s stubborn genius well, never over-advertising the man’s abilities but rather reveling in his flaws and exploring the precious little dynamism available in the screenplay. That said, Ford does get the best lines in the film, even one that will remind viewers of his classic Air Force One proclamation “Get off my plane.” Hint, Stonehill wants someone to get out of his lab.
Over the last decade, Harrison Ford has certainly fallen off the band wagon, taking roles that require little-to-no effort (Firewall) and others that offer hints of past stardom (Hollywood Homicide, K-19: The Widowmaker) behind a mediocre final product. Extraordinary Measures falls into the latter category, confirming two things: Ford still is, and always will be, the top-notch actor the world as come to admire and the man needs better representation, because his career choices are atrocious.
3 out of 10 (all stars go to Ford’s performance)
What did you think of Extraordinary Measures? Will you see it this weekend?