"Critical Care," a spoof of doctors and hospitals more
concerned with a vital bottom line than in restoring their
patients' health, is only mildly satiric, but that's OK.
A book or movie or theater piece which seeks to ridicule an
institution of society does not have to hit it over the head with
a sledgehammer. Many mild-manned lampoons are effective
indeed. You need look only to such masterworks as the music
of Gilbert and Sullivan or the comedies of Oscar Wilde to
witness the power of restrained ridicule. Greedy lawyers, self-
seeking doctors, and pseudo-religious hypocrites have been
taunted for a while now. Didn't Shakespeare's King Henry VI
say "let's kill all the lawyers," Moliere's Tartuffe explain "To sin
in private is not a sin," and Paddy Chayefsky's George C.
Scott complain "We cure nothing"? What we need, then, is a
new way of looking at the evils that professionals and
institutions practice. Despite Steven Schwartz's clever writing
and Sidney Lumet's dutiful direction, "Critical Care" is not that
novelty.
The setting of "Critical Care," which is filmed almost
completely in a studio, has the airless look of an ultra-modern
hospital, one which is surprisingly quiet for an urban medical
center, making Dr. Werner Ernst's (James Spader) complaints
about overwork seem strange. The story focuses on
professionals' reactions to two patients near-death; one is
comatose and kept alive only technically, the other quite
conscious but virtually unable to move and eager for death.
By the time the film ends, Dr. Ernst has gone through a
metamorphosis, changing from a self-serving, skirt chasing
physician eager to make up in money and partying for all the
suffering he endured through ten years of college, to a true
professional who feels entitled for the very first time to call
himself a doctor.
The drama takes off when Felicia (Kyra Sedgwick), a bimbo
model whose father is in a persistent vegetative state, asks
that the old man be removed from life support. The conflict
arises when Connie (Margo Martindale), her apparently
devout, bible-thumping sister, refuses to authorize the pulling
of the plug, insisting that dad hears everything she says to
him and communicates by squeezing her hand. In short
order the hypocrisy of both women is exposed, but not before
Ernst is seduced by Felicia, leading him into a serious case of
blackmail.
Ernst discusses the case repeatedly with his supervising
physician, Dr. Butz (Albert Brooks)--who is unrecognizable in
the disguise of an alcoholic geezer with his mind as much on
money as Ernst's is on models. Butz comes on as the classic
case of the medical profession's obsession with insurance.
Reminding Ernst to treat even hopeless cases if they have
comprehensive, catastrophic coverage and reject those who
have none, Butz is the comic center of the film whose other
characters seem to speak primarily in the hushed tones of a
public library. He does convey some words of wisdom worth
our consideration: Make sure you do not allot big bucks for
catastrophic health insurance and you'll die with a smile on
your face. Lumet proves his point by displaying some of the
suffering which terminal patients go through while being kept
only technically alive.
Copyright © 1997 Harvey Karten
