| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 30, 2006

A polemic in search of a plot.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 6, 2002

"What John does is heroic, but we don't condone it," one of the film's stars recently said, a tortuous comment that perfectly illustrates the picture's moral schizophrenia.

| Original Score: D- | May 9, 2002

Doesn't so much need a heart as a brain transplant.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 22, 2002

Manipulative sentimentality, contrived plot and phony climax.

Full Review | Mar 13, 2002

A sappy, melodramatic Denzel Washington vehicle that ensnares you in the standard hostage-movie scenario and doesn't let go until the director runs the whole playbook.

Full Review | Mar 4, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 24, 2002

It pulls out more stops than that old silent serial The Perils of Pauline. Unfortunately, it's a talkie.

Full Review | Feb 24, 2002

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 24, 2002

Cassavetes thinks he's making Dog Day Afternoon with a cause, but all he's done is to reduce everything he touches to a shrill, didactic cartoon.

| Original Score: C | Feb 21, 2002

...a ridiculous script that gets just about everything wrong...

Full Review | Feb 19, 2002

Represents a creative dead end for the organ-transplant movie.

| Feb 19, 2002

A profoundly bad movie, managing to incorporate every clich in the hostage-drama genre into its skimpy narrative.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 16, 2002

The movie's manipulations become so transparent that it can't really touch our emotions, especially since it fails to follow through honestly on its premise.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 16, 2002

It is a film that taps a deep well of resentment, and despite all its flaws, it is highly effective entertainment.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Feb 15, 2002

It reduces the complexities to bromides and slogans and it gets so preachy-keen and so tub-thumpingly loud it makes you feel like a chump just for sitting through it.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 15, 2002

One can excuse the movie's missteps and melodramatic moments in the greater interest of the strong statement it makes about our health care system.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 15, 2002

Stacks its emotional deck in favour of the reluctant hero so high it threatens to collapse.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 15, 2002

[Cassavetes and Kearns] stacked the deck so much that the movie becomes absurd.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 15, 2002

Timidly dips its toe into important issues only to abandon them for cheap entertainment prancing around in faux sackcloth.

| Feb 15, 2002