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Cancer Minor 
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TITLE |
Desperate Measures (1998) |
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DISABILITY |
Cancer
Leukaemia |
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DIRECTOR |
Barbet
Schroeder
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NOTES |
A nine year
old boy is dying from leukaemia and needs a bone marrow transplant.
His father, a San Franciscan policeman (Andy Garcia), finds the only
suitable donor is a psychopathic criminal (Michael Keaton).
Interesting, methodical and suspenseful but when Garcia
sacrifices fellow officers to save his son we're in a dilemma. I
suppose that like the hundreds of films in which police cars
pursuing a suspect put the lives of the public at risk we
swallow our disbelief.
Yet we do wonder how he is going to capture Keaton alive.
And that is the crux of the film. The bone marrow is useless it
is explained to us if Keaton dies.
By Garcia's rash actions the police are pursuing not only
Keaton but Garcia. Yet for Keaton there are so many no-win
situations which like James Bond he manages to survive.
And it gets really silly when he gains control of the computer
which runs the building.
SWAT teams which you know generally succeed through
training and overwhelming firepower are picked off like bottles on a
post. So this is yet another film in which it doesn't matter how many
cops or civilians are killed to save one person. In the chase
along the freeway Garcia, the policeman, not Keaton, the villain,
crashes through the barrier into the opposite lanes setting off
multiple accidents.
To top it all there's a jokey ending with Keaton in a hospital
bed, suggesting there might be a sequel.
Let's hope not in the interest of keeping more people alive.
This film has precious little to do with bone marrow
transplants. Keaton is great as a psychopath, Garcia as a
cop and the film just about works as a thriller.
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Notes
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