Extraordinary Measures : Movie Review


“Extraordinary Measures” is the inaugural motion picture for CBS Films, which is an apt studio home, considering the feature plays much like a broad television production, with a soft trickling of sentimentality and a structure that pauses for commercial breaks. It’s a frivolous disease-of-the-week picture, but sufficiently intriguing, even taking on a startling perspective in the war of do-gooder science vs. vampiric pharmaceutical industry profit.

John Crowley (Brendan Fraser) is a harried businessman and father of two children stricken with Pompe disease, an affliction of muscle deterioration with an age expectancy of nine years. With critical birthdays on the horizon, Crowley decides to take a chance and pursue research scientist Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford), a renegade thinker in the field of Pompe with radical ideas on enzyme therapy. Promising money he doesn’t necessarily have, Crowley talks Stonehill into a business venture, pushing the irascible scientist into research while he worries about the cash flow. With the clock ticking, Stonehill presents challenging theories, piquing the interest of pharmaceutical giants, who demand results practically overnight. With Stonehill feeling the heat during this demoralizing process, Crowley fights to maintain the face of Pompe, to keep the cure from becoming just another compromised drug on the market.

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Author : brianorndorf