Hopefully, your local hospital gives out free health care.
Hope Memorial Hospital does not, and one dying little boy doesn’t have time to wait for the medical system to change, and neither does his determined father.
John Q. looks at John Quincy Archibald (Denzel Washington), a hard-working factory employee and even harder-working family man, who is having trouble doing either effectively after having his hours trimmed back at work. Unfortunately, the bank has already repossessed his car, he is unable find more work, and, after his young son collapses while playing baseball, he doesn’t have adequate insurance to pay for a necessary heart transplant operation.
John Q. delivers plenty of action, but its real strength lies in the realism of its characters. Washington plays John Q. just as John Q. should be played?as an average citizen whom the powerful system sometimes forgets about. Maybe anyone out there could play the average guy, but let’s face it?Washington plays the average guy well above average. The audience quickly identifies with John Q.’s rage and easily comes to accept his armed takeover of the hospital emergency hospital room, from which he demands his son’s operation.
Washington has the potential to carry an entire movie, but John Q. benefits tremendously from a host of supporting performances. For as easy as it is to identify with John Q. and the world’s “have-nots,” it’s even easier to hate the “haves”?namely, hospital director Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche) and the head of cardiology, Dr. Turner (James Woods). Both Heche and Woods turn in convincing performances as symbols of the uncaring hospital management, who consider “free health care” a laughable oxymoron. Equally impressive is Ray Liotta’s character, the PR-obsessed police chief who wants the entire situation handled quickly and quietly, mainly because it is an election year.
“Everything is so much easier with money,” John Q. tells his dying son, and this simple truth gives the movie much of its force. Some of the most powerful scenes focus on ordinary encounters with money. At one point, an insurance agent tells John Q. he only qualifies for “second tier, non-catastrophic insurance” because he only works part-time. Of course, this is not John Q.’s fault, but for the insurance agent, his problems with the factory are not important?only how much money John Q. makes?and that’s not enough. Money is what really matters to the hospital director, who tells a desperate John Q., “Once and for all, your insurance doesn’t cover this.”
To its credit, John Q. argues passionately in support of the forgotten working man, but while it makes some good critiques of corporate America, it uses a few too many bullets. Heche’s character is exceedingly cold and remote at some points: “People get sick. They die. That’s the way it goes.” Hospital managers and doctors, in fact, get a savage treatment throughout the movie, and the overriding messages about the HMO-based health care system are anything but subtle. Ultimately, it is even simpler to distinguish between good and bad in John Q. than in most hostage/action movies?only this time, the only good guy carries a gun.
Frankly, Washington could have gotten away with carrying a machine gun and his character still would have resonated with audience members. What brilliantly comes across is his character’s sense of complete isolation and helplessness. Not only do you end up rooting for him and his son, you end up rooting against the entire American health care establishment in the process. If you’re looking for some stellar acting?or, better yet, your next political cause?check out John Q.
