Back in the nineties, I was a teenager and started discovering my first thrillers; - among which "Extreme Measures". I quite liked it then, and it still is an adequate thriller twenty-five years later, but admittedly it also pales in comparison to all the genius 70s and 80s hospital/medical horror films and thrillers I've watched since then. Next to genuine classics (like "Coma" or "Seconds"), or even obscure little masterpieces (like "The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler" or "Parts: The Clonus Horror"), a film such as "Extreme Measures" feels routine, predictable, and derivative.
Hugh Grant stars as a young prodigy-doctor in New York, with a more than promising future ahead of him. But when he becomes too obsessed with a nameless patient's strange symptoms, undisclosed death, and subsequent vanishing of the corpse, he sees his professional career as well as his personal life in great danger. And yet, he still doesn't let go! With Gene Hackman (too briefly) appearing as an elite but suspicious-looking neurologist, and two goons prowling the NY underground in search of disposable homeless men, the mystery isn't too difficult to unravel.
Quite funny detail: the aforementioned goons (David Morse and Bill Nunn) are named Burke and Hare. In case this doesn't immediately ring a bell, Burke and Hare were two notorious murderers in 19th century Scotland. They started as corpse-snatchers for the medical research of a prominent doctor, but quickly turned to murdering people to have the freshest corpses.
Hugh Grant stars as a young prodigy-doctor in New York, with a more than promising future ahead of him. But when he becomes too obsessed with a nameless patient's strange symptoms, undisclosed death, and subsequent vanishing of the corpse, he sees his professional career as well as his personal life in great danger. And yet, he still doesn't let go! With Gene Hackman (too briefly) appearing as an elite but suspicious-looking neurologist, and two goons prowling the NY underground in search of disposable homeless men, the mystery isn't too difficult to unravel.
Quite funny detail: the aforementioned goons (David Morse and Bill Nunn) are named Burke and Hare. In case this doesn't immediately ring a bell, Burke and Hare were two notorious murderers in 19th century Scotland. They started as corpse-snatchers for the medical research of a prominent doctor, but quickly turned to murdering people to have the freshest corpses.