Desperate Measures (1998)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Barbet Schroeder

Writer (WGA):

David Klass (written by)

Release Date:

30 January 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

His son needs a DNA donor to live. The clock is ticking. The only match is a vicious killer. Now all Frank Conner has to do is catch him.

Plot:

San Francisco police officer Frank Connor is in a frantic search for a compatible bone marrow donor for his gravely ill son...

Plot Keywords:

Hospital | Police | Escape | Prison Escape | Psycho Thriller

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Michael Keaton	...	Peter McCabe
Andy Garcia	...	Frank Conner
Brian Cox	...	Captain Jeremiah Cassidy
Marcia Gay Harden	...	Dr. Samantha Hawkins
Erik King	...	Nate Oliver
Efrain Figueroa	...	Vargas
Joseph Cross	...	Matthew Conner
Janel Moloney	...	Sarah Davis
Richard Riehle	...	Ed Fayne
Tracey Walter	...	Medical Inmate
Peter Weireter	...	SWAT Team Commander
Keith Diamond	...	Derrick Wilson
Steve Park	...	Dr. Gosha
Steven Schub	...	SWAT in Airduct
Neal Matarazzo	...	Cell Guard

Also Known As:

Apegnosmenes kiniseis (Greece) [el]
Derniers recours (Canada: French title) [fr]
Desperate Measures - Jede Stunde zählt (Germany) (TV title) [de]
Gyilkos donor (Hungary) [hu]
L'enjeu (France) [fr]
Medidas Desesperadas (Brazil) [pt]
Medidas desesperadas (Spain) [es]
Pacto con la muerte (Argentina) [es]
Piinaavat hetket (Finland) [fi]
Sista utvägen (Sweden) [sv]
Soluzione estrema (Italy) [it]
Son umut (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]

MPAA:

Rated R for violence and language.

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

USA:R (certificate #34792) | Australia:M | Iceland:14 | Iceland:16 (video rating) | South Korea:15 | Philippines:PG-13 | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Denmark:15 | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 | Netherlands:16 | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Closed Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino, California, USA

Company:

Eaglepoint

Trivia:

The article "Inside the Mind of a Sociopath" that the Captain reads during the trip to the prison is written "by Michael Keaton".

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: Rigging to make semi trailer appear to jackknife is visible.

Quotes:

Peter McCabe: You have to appreciate the irony. After all these years of being locked up, I'm given the opportunity to kill again. A cops kid too, and all I have to do is sit right here.

Movie Connections:

References History of the World: Part I (1981)

Soundtrack:

PROUD MARY

Desperate. Very.

Andy Garcia is the "hero" in this predictable and ludicrous film. He plays Conner, a cop with a son who needs a bone marrow transplant to stay alive. Enter Michael Keaton as McCabe, a mad psychopathic criminal genius (aren't they all?) whose bone marrow is a perfect match. What follows is an irritating battle of wits between Conner and McCabe, who decides he'd like to bust outta the hospital using nothing but a half-swallowed ampoule of a magical elixir, a dislocated thumb and a cigarette lighter flint. Move over MacGuyver.

Garcia is particularly annoying as actor and character. His character is devoted to his son. Nothing wrong with that. Unless your devotion for your son means that EVERYONE ELSE'S life is meaningless and expendable. As McCabe tries to escape from the hospital Conner has to save McCabe's life many times because once dead, his bone marrow is no longer useful. Conner causes a cop to get shot as well as motorway carnage in his attempts to capture McCabe unharmed. I got increasingly more angry watching Garcia as Conner risk everyone he comes into contact with so that his son may have a chance of living. What about the rest of us? Don't we deserve a chance at life too? The Conner character seems to be rooted in the maverick cop tradition, playing by his own rules and deciding what is and isn't right. It's a world where a bully makes the rules and you follow them or face the consequences. Something along the lines of what happened in Germany in the Thirties...

Garcia as actor is annoying to the extreme, spending most of the film tearing about the place in a semi-crouch with one arm stiff by his side for some reason. He trots out his usual bits of actor's business that appear in most Garcia films. He does the scene where he grabs someone's head in both of his hands and speaks/shouts right into their face. He does the scene where he explosively loses he temper and kicks some furniture only to immediately regain control of himself and instantly become the ice-man. He does the scene where he shouts in anger at the top of his lungs, while his face looks as if he has just spent an afternoon staring at the test card. You know the stuff. We've seen it all before.

The film goes on for far too long and credibility is stretched time and again until even the densest viewer's intelligence is insulted. We're encouraged to sympathise with the Garcia character: his wife is dead, his son's dying, he's a cop, he's pretty, he is a devoted father etc etc, but really, all he is, is a self-centred fascist bully.

Keaton has to make flesh a one dimensional cliché of a character and he has a go but is on a losing wicket from the outset. How can you put a new and imaginative slant on the stock Mad Criminal Genius character? And Barbet Schroeder, what were you thinking? From the classic Barfly to this? Pity...