Tag: hospital

MERCY – Review

Jonathan Rhys Meyer (top) in the crime action thriller MERCY. Courtesy of Paramount

There isn’t much mercy in MERCY but there is a lot of action and stunt in this crime thriller set in a hospital, starring Leah Gibson (Jessica Jones), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Vikings) and Jon Voight (Coming Home).

Leah Gibson plays a surgeon at Mercy hospital, a former military doctor in the Afghanistan War, who finds herself caught in difficult spot when the wounded son of an Irish mafia leader (Jon Voight) is brought to her hospital, and the Irish mafia seize control of the hospital. As the mafia head and his hot-headed son (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) battle FBI agents guarding the wounded man, the doctor finds herself, and her young son, caught in the crossfire, forcing her to call upon her battlefield past.

There is a DIE HARD vibe to MERCY but a little TAKEN too, as this ex-military doctor has a “special set of skills” besides in the operating room, skills these criminals aren’t expecting. That is no spoiler, since the film gives away that history early on.

And that is part of MERCY’s problem. While the action thriller has a talented supporting cast in bad guys Jon Voight and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and the delight of a strong female action protagonist in Leah Gibson, the script gives away too much too soon. Director Tony Dean Smith does not help by doing little to build suspense, although the potential is there. Still, there are plenty of thrilling martial arts action scenes featuring Gibson, who trained as a dancer and really has some moves, but early on we get a flashback to Afghanistan that lets us know this hard-working female doctor is more than a widowed mother hoping to take a day off to spend with her young son on his birthday. After further flashbacks tells us she is a decorated sharpshooter too, we are not surprised she is a crack shot, although the bad guys are pretty taken aback by that discovery. Time and again, the script tips us off to the good doctor’s other skills before we get to see them in action.

But the real point of MERCY is the action. And the action sequences are good, with some thrilling martial arts work in the hospital corridors and stairwells. The action is kicked off with a nice, thrilling shoot-out car chase. An array of criminal henchmen are there to be picked off as this action-er unspools, and an internal divide in the Irish mafia gang, with a sibling conflict that dad Jon Voight is unaware of, gives dad and son Rhys Meyers different goals, adds to the tension.

Jon Voight and Jonathan Rhys Meyer do their best to breath life into their underwritten bad guy characters. A lot of that burden falls on Rhys Meyer, in his larger role playing the loose-cannon son that his father Voight is always trying to rein in. Rhys Meyer’s character is violent and slightly crazy and his motivations don’t always completely make sense, but the actor does well menacing hostages in the hospital and the doctor, while directing his loyal gang of odd-character criminals in a hunt for the wounded brother.

MERCY delivers a series of action confrontations as Voight and Rhys Meyers separately hunt the wounded brother, while the doctor, other staff and FBI try to hide him, a cat-and-mouse game that whittles down the participants on both sides.

If you are just looking for fast and bloody action thriller, with clear good guy – bad guy lines and a kick-ass female hero, MERCY will fit that bill, as long as you aren’t looking also for plot surprises or character depth, or much mercy. But this thriller with a female doctor with a military background as a protagonist had potential to be a more suspenseful film, with a script that had taken a different approach to the idea. As is, it largely wastes the talents of Jonathan Rhys Meyer and Jon Voight in a script that just mechanically moves from one fight scene to the next without the suspense and character depth it could have had.

MERCY opens Friday, May 19, in select theaters and on digital, and will be available On Demand on June 2.

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars

FIVE FEET APART – Review

Attention all you fans of flicks that tug at the heartstrings, load up the tissues and keep a “hankie” at the ready, cause this new flick is out to give those tear ducts a tough workout. Sure, Valentine’s Day was last month, but this showcases some very popular teen stars (one is on a “hot” CW TV show), so it’s the perfect film for all the kids going on Spring Break. Plus the movies last month were primarily “rom coms” like WHAT MEN WANT and ISN’T IT ROMANTIC, while this, though it has a smattering of humor, may be the opposite. A “rom-trag”, perhaps. That’s because the “third wheel” that’s trying to split up the main couple is a deadly disease. Because of it, this girl and boy must keep FIVE FEET APART.

After a narrated montage about the power of “touch”, we’re right in the middle of what appears to be an all teenage girls’ “slumber party”. Several are happily talking about their much-anticipated Spring trip until they catch a glimpse of the party hostess Stella (Haley Lu Richardson). The camera pulls out to reveal that we’re not in Stella’s bedroom, but rather her hospital room. She’s checked back in because of a nasty sore throat and fever, a deadly combo for a cystic fibrosis patient like herself. After her pals leave, Stella goes back to her usual routine of video blogging, getting her “meds’ from Nurse Barb (Kimberly Hebert Gregory), sneaking down to the maternity floor to watch the new babies, organizing said meds, and checking in with another CF patient down the hall, good pal Poe (Moises Arias). But she can’t get too close to him for fear of cross-infection (a big risk for “CF-ers”). Ah, but new lungs may be available at any moment, which would give 4 or 5 more years of easier breathing. The routine is disrupted with the arrival of a new CF patient, the dark, brooding artist named Will (Cole Sprouse). He and Stella clash at the start (she’s too regimented, he won’t get serious about taking his meds), but somehow they make a connection. The friendship slowly blossoms into a romance. But can they sustain their relationship despite the disease that forbids any real physical contact, and could strike either one of them down with no warning?

 

 

The talented leads frequently rise above the often turgid material. That’s certainly the case with Richardson, one of the busiest young actresses in film today, bouncing effortlessly from studio “wide release” fare like SPLIT and THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN to the quirkiest of low-budget “indies’ such as COLUMBUS and SUPPORT THE GIRLS. Here she brings lots of energy and sincerity to Stella while being unafraid to show her frequent abrasive, controlling side, putting up a wall when others don’t meet or demands. Her best work is in showing how Stella breaks through her emotional cage when fully connecting to Will. He’s played by Sprouse, who has made a successful transition from Disney Channel sitcom child star (“The Suite Life of Zack and Cody”) to prime time teen drama star (an unconventional heartthrob as “Jughead” Jones of “Riverdale”) who’s making a bid for more adult movie roles. Unfortunately, Will is often too downbeat, so Cole tries to make him “edgy’ but comes off more as sullen, wrecking any tries at “smoldering intensity”. He still projects some needed whimsy with his quirky cartoons that establishes his artistic, sensitive demeanor. Their supporting cast has a bigger struggle with character cliches left over from too many other romantic flicks (dramas and comedies). Arias scores a few easy laughs as the tired cliche so well skewered in last month’s ISN’T IT ROMANTIC, the gay next door neighbor (down the hall here) who seems to live only to support and encourage the female lead (we’re told of his romances, but his beaus never show up perhaps due to poor audience test scores). This is a big step up for Arias, as Poe isn’t anywhere near as grating as his Biaggio in 2013’s THE KINGS OF SUMMER. He shows us that Poe’s manic enthusiasm for Stella masks his own fears and sorrow. Similarly, Gregory does her best to make the “sassy” overseer/enforcer fresh, but too often she’s reduced to being the squelcher of fun and hijinks, though she gives us a taste of the tragic reasoning of Nurse Barb, with a backstory of young lovers lost.

 

Actor (another CW show “Jane the Virgin”) turned first-time feature film director Justin Baldoni does an admirable job of keeping the pace from stalling while breaking up the locales, bouncing from one hospital floor to the next, even going outdoors in the frigid cold (being locked out on the roof can’t help those weak lungs). Ultimately the stodgy, overly familiar script unravels his best efforts. Surprisingly it’s not based on a “young adult novel” though it owes much to other recent YA-based flicks like EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING and particularly THE FAULT IN OUR STARS (sorry, no make-out scene in front of Anne Frank’s house in this one), whose roots go back to DARK VICTORY, LOVE STORY and the TV movie-of-the-week classic “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble”. And at nearly two hours, it feel needlessly “padded” with squabbles and petty turmoils threatening the love birds (“Don’t ask me about Abby”, “Do your meds”, etc.). This all leads up to a now established cliche worthy of Siskel and Ebert (miss those guys). They complained that nobody gets “better” in movie hospitals. That’s compiled here with a relative “newbie”, the “frozen-over pond or lake”, which is sure to put the heroes in deadly danger (look for the “true story” BREAKTHROUGH next week). And this is preceded with the martyrdom of a big character (gotta’ reiterate the seriousness of the illness, but the main couple must be spared for now). Those wanting a good sob will get their wishes fulfilled (and get their noses unclogged), but real romance flick fans deserve better than this big screen take on the old “disease of the week” TV movies. At least the soundtrack (full of pop hits) of FIVE FEET APART didn’t have a “boy band” remix of the old standard “A Fine Romance” though its lyrics fit (“A fine romance…with no kisses”).

 

1.5 Out of 5