Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49760 in DVD
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish

Amazon.com
It's impossible to walk away from John Q. without thinking about the film that could have been. The pathetic state of health care in the U.S. and the desperate behavior it engenders is not only worthy but edgy material; no doubt director Nick Cassavetes (She's So Lovely) and Denzel Washington (as well as Robert Duvall, Ray Liotta, James Woods, and Anne Heche) were drawn to the provocative pitch. The only snag is that John Q. has about as much edge as an after-school special. Washington plays John Quincy Archibald, a hard-working factory worker whose house stands to be repossessed and whose lovely wife (Kimberly Elise) is at her wits' end. When his extremely cute son collapses while rounding the bases in a Little League game, things go from bad to worse. John Q. takes a downtown Chicago emergency room hostage when he learns that the heart transplant his son needs won't be performed because his health care doesn't cover it. The action-drama that ensues--replete with one-liners, stilted debate, inept snipers, and multiple references to O.J. Simpson's white Bronco--is so littered with clichés that the issues, timely ones, get lost in a crescendo of melodrama. --Fionn Meade

From The New Yorker
When his young son needs a heart transplant and his insurance won't cover the operation, a Chicago machinist (Denzel Washington) takes a prominent surgeon (James Woods) and a number of patients hostage, threatening to kill his captives if his son doesn't get a new ticker. This tearjerker, written by James Kearns and directed by Nick Cassavetes, is a trashy, opportunistic work that appears to have been intentionally pitched low in order to rouse an audience that the filmmakers view as politically somnolent. They may have calculated correctly: the movie is badly written, directed, and acted, yet the people in the theatre, fed up with the health-care system, seem alive to the picture and shout back at the screen. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

it made me cry
i hope you chose to buy this movie it will make you think about the love of a father.

Denzel At His Best
John Q is a simple film that will please the crowd. Denzel Washingtion is in top form as usual as are Ray Lilota and Robert Duvall. The direction by Nick Cassavates is some of his finest since She's So Lovely. After watching this film I asked myself would I do the same thing for anyone I loved and the answer is yes,

Criminal or father or the year?
Mike Archibald (Daniel E. Smith) seemed perfectly healthy until he collapsed at a baseball game. He's taken to Hope Memorial Hospital where Dr. Raymond Turner (James Wood) advises the family the child needs a heart transplant.

Unfortunately, John Q. Archibald (Denzel Washington) has an HMO and the surgery isn't covered. Despite the family being barely barely able to survive financially, they don't qualify for Medicare. John hocks everything he owns and pays the hospital a hard raised $6,000, they're going to release Mike. Mike's Mom (Kimberly Elise) tells John to DO SOMETHING.

The only thing John can think of to stop his son being released to go home and die is take the hospital ER hostage. He takes a gun--which he has not yet sold--and does just that.

Everyone has an agenda in this. The Police Chief (Liotta) wants to appease the mayor in an election year. The press want a story that will rival OJ's escapade with the white Bronco. The other patients in the ER want to get their own healthcare issues taken care of. Hostage negotiator Frank Grimes (Robert Duvall) wants everyone out alive.

"John Q" is one of the most compelling films I've seen in a long time because the story is entirely real. This is one of Denzel Washington's, James Wood's and Duvall's best performances to date. The story will have you in tears and cheering at points--and hopefully asking some meaningful questions about your own healthcare coverage.

Rebecca Kyle, May 2008