Directed by Michael Apted | Written by Tony Gilroy, adapting a book by Michael Palmer | 118 min | ▲▲▲ | Hoopla, VOD
This none-more-’90s thriller starts with Hugh Grant fully in his floppy-hair phase as an emergency room doctor in New York City on a very busy night. Grant’s Dr Guy Luthan seems a little out of his depth, which is handy because Grant really seems like he is, too. This isn’t the Hugh Grant we’re used to seeing from his leading man phase in the 1990s, and he doesn’t look entirely comfortable, but it’s easy to understand why he’d give this project a shot. It was produced with his ex, Elizabeth Hurley, maybe hoping to allow him to break out of the kind of movies he’d been making, the ones that made him famous but didn’t allow for a lot of variety.
Michael Apted was in charge — a capable filmmaker, having helmed the 7-Up documentaries, Gorky Park and Gorillas In The Mist. Screenwriter Gilroy was already a recognized talent, which he’s proved repeatedly in the years since on the Bourne series, Michael Clayton, and Star Wars: Andor. The comparisons to conspiracy thrillers like The Fugitive are apt, this has a similar tone, but Grant’s Dr Luthan is a lot harder to go along with.
The problem here is he’s the source of his own problems. He’s working 90 hours a week at this very busy hospital, but he still has the curiosity and energy to ask, “Why did this homeless man I treated last night, who had such peculiar bloodwork, disappear?” It turns out he’s right about a conspiracy — subjects for a secret research project are being taken from the city’s homeless population because they won’t be missed — but it’s Luthan’s motivations that are hard to swallow.
Obstacles are thrown up in his face at every turn, but why he cares so much about this one man is tough to figure. We’re supposed to admire his doggedness, but the way it’s presented here it’s so outsized it seems manic, which of course makes the conspirators’ job easier — framing him on a drug charge and getting him kicked out of the hospital. It turns out Luthan’s eagerness to figure out what happened to this one man is a convenient plot device that leads him to have no choice but to keep on digging.
Underlying the thriller elements, which get progressively more preposterous, is a thoughtful current of scientific and medical ethics questions. Those dimensions elevate the material, but not quite enough to make this more than an OK genre exercise with a few additional pleasures.
It is fun watching the reliable supporting cast of character actors circle our star — Bill Nunn, David Morse, Paul Guilfoyle, and Debra Monk — while also enjoying performers who later became serious stars in their own right, like Sarah Jessica Parker and JK Simmons. Keep your eyes open for a David Cronenberg cameo, a sure sign part of this was shot in Toronto.
A big draw here is the late, great Gene Hackman, in the full bad-guy mode that was a big part of his post-Unforgiven career — he’s coasting here. Still, neither his stardom nor his moustache are to be trifled with.
Apted handles the hospital scenes well — lots of choreographed conversations moving through crowded hallways and up stairwells, though he’s less convincing with action beats — funny thing since he was about to direct a James Bond 007 movie. A scene where Grant and Morse tussle in an elevator fails to convince, along with a naff subway foot chase.
The unimpressive box office of this project was likely enough for Grant to look askance at any Hollywood thriller script to cross his desk afterward — in the years following he rapidly went back to romcoms like Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’ Diary, and About A Boy. Maybe that’s too bad, since he has shown more recently he’s got plenty of range beyond his romantic Englishman persona. Either way, Grant deserves credit for the swing, even if Extreme Measures isn’t likely to be a highlight of his filmography.
