Film Reviews

Extraordinary Measures

• Rating:
• Director: Tom Vaughan
• Starring: Brendan Fraser
• Details: US / 105mins (PG).

If this melodrama didn't boast the star names of Ford and Fraser, it would pop up on RTE late one night as a made-for-TV-drama where it would be given its full title - Extraordinary Measures: The Something Something Story.
John (Fraser) and Aileen (Russell) Crowley have three children, two of which suffer from Pompe Disease, a rare condition that sees the patient lack the enzyme necessary to break down glycogen in their bodies and as a result it builds up in the muscles and respiratory system. Those with Pompe rarely live past nine, which is the age of the Crowley's middle child, Megan (Droeger). Knowing that time is not on their side, John tracks down Dr. Robert Stonehill (Ford, co-producing here), a rogue scientist whose years of research have come up with a theory on how to make artificial enzymes. However, Stonehill's research is still some way from completion and needs a half a million to bring his theory to fruition. Will John and Aileen raise the money in time and will Stonehill's penchant for pissing off the suits ruin his chances of a cure?
It won't take a team of monkeys working around the clock to figure out the ending, even if you didn't know that the book the movie is based on (by Geeta Anand) has the lengthy title of "The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million - And Bucked the Medical Establishment - in a Quest to Save His Children". Kind of kills the drama, doesn't it? Extraordinary Measures is pretty uninspiring stuff, playing out exactly how you would expect it to. It's tough to knock a movie that's attempting to something noble and shed light on a previously unknown disease but at the end of the day we've all seen this movie somwhere before. The characters aren't lifted off the script pages by the actors and no one is pushed to offer something different. Fraser's quiet-dad-who-will-do-anything is pitted against the Big Company is nothing new, while Ford has been getting away with playing the same I-grumble-a-lot character for some time now. Russell too has little to do but stay at home and worry. The dialogue isn't up to much either with the likes of "I don't care about money. I'm a scientist. I care about more important things that that,” and “You heartless, bloodless machine" rife throughout.
Saying that, you'd have to be a heartless, bloodless machine not to be moved by the close but by that stage it's too little, too late. And for my money Lorenzo's Oil is still the best of its kind.

Review by Gavin Burke