Familiar Measures a Still Stirring Drama
John Crowley (Brendan Fraser) is an up-and-coming pharmaceutical company executive living in Portland who apparently has it all. But his two youngest children have Pompe Disease, a muscular dystrophies-type affliction where the child seldom survives after age eight, and he and his wife Aileen (Keri Russell) aren’t content just enjoying the time they have with their kids before they die. They are obsessed with finding a cure, and if doing so puts their cushy lifestyle in jeopardy then so be it, at least if they succeed they’re children will still be a part of the family.
Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford in CBS Films' Extraordinary Measures
Enter Nebraska scientist Dr. Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford). He’s got some radical ideas that could lead to a cure for Pompe Disease, he just can’t scrape up the funding to try and put those theories to a test. That’s when John decides to put it all on the line. Leaving his job in Portland he helps Dr. Stonehill start up his own company and the race to get a viable serum to combat his children’s disease is on. This mismatched pair bicker and butt heads but their mutual fight remains the same, the fate of the Crowley family resting upon whether or not these two can set aside their differences and make scientific history.
Based on a true story, Extraordinary Measures is an emotional and straightforward medical drama that’s hard to find fault with. Confidently directed by Tom Vaughan (Starter for 10) and solidly scripted by Oscar-nominee Robert Nelson Jacobs (Chocolat), the movie is a fast-moving procedural filled with emotion. Watching it is extremely easy, and at just under two hours it gets to the point quickly never coming close to wearing out its welcome.
But it is also amazingly over-familiar. The first theatrical release of CBS Films, the film has a lot of trouble escaping its made-for-TV roots, and while enjoyable and well made the fact I kept waiting for commercial interruption isn’t a major selling point. More First Do No Harm (1997 made for Cable Meryl Streep medical drama) than Lorenzo’s Oil (outstanding 1992 George Miller effort with Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon), this movie feels like it would have been more at home on Showtime then it is in the multiplex, and as good as it is I’m not sure I’d have been thrilled had I paid even matinee pricing to see it.
As I didn’t I more than willing to give the film’s predictability and unsurprising nature a bit of a pass. Vaughn does an excellent job keeping the rambling nature of this beast in check, and even with so much time passing from start to finish everything flows with believable ease that’s easy to go along with. Each step of the Crowley family journey makes sense, and even when things turn into some sort of B-grade “C.S.I.”-like thriller during the final act the director somehow still manages to make these scenes connect. John makes decisions I’d like to think I could make if I were in a similar situation, even his more outlandish ones coming from a place of familial love that’s intimately relatable.
It’s a pity that Fraser has become so typecast, his roles in those Mummy movies, George of the Jungle and those of a similar ilk making it hard to take him seriously dramatically. Yet the guy really can be a grand actor when he sets his mind to it, and in films as diverse as The Air Up There, Gods and Monsters and The Quiet American he has proved than point and then some. But while he is very good here there are still moments where it becomes impossible to dissociate him from some of his zanier personas, and the more Fraser is asked to descend into despair the more his performance felt a little bit false.
Most of those scenes come when he’s alone, however, as the ones he shares with either Russell or Ford are pretty much perfect. For some reason he lifts his game to another level whenever they’re around, in particular his sequences with latter having an immediacy and an intelligence his individual ones sadly lack. Fraser has a focus when he’s onscreen with Ford that’s downright mesmerizing, the two men making for a dynamic pair that was tough to take my eyes off of.
Needless to say the script doesn’t follow author Geeta Anand’s source material to the letter. Jacobs’s script condenses events, changes locations and combines three different doctors into Ford’s Dr. Stonehill. It also jacks up the speed in order to create tension, time an enemy in both book and in movie, yes, but movie said that threat and amplifies it considerably. He also creates villains and red herrings that are more or less unnecessary, many of the theoretical discussions they’re around for just trampling over ground the two main characters had already covered.
Still, intelligent wide release theatrical dramas are hard to come by nowadays, theaters overflowing with the latest dopey action flick or comedy that will appeal to a tween and teen demographic. For all its faults and familiarity Extraordinary Measures is a hugely enjoyable enterprise made for those with a both a brain and an attention span longer than that of a nanosecond. While not a great movie, it is still a very good one, and as January surprises go watching this was about as happy a one as I’m likely to get.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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