“A Clinical Trial”
There are moments in “Extraordinary Measures” where it feels almost like a propaganda film raising awareness for Pompe’s disease and soliciting for charitable donations. It got me wondering if the film itself was commercially released to be a profitable venture, or if the filmmakers intend to donate the box office grosses to charity.
It’s not always easy to sell terminally ill children as entertainment. But the dramatization of real events can be equally educational and entertaining if only the events seemed realistic.
It’s a tricky balancing act of the scientific and the sentimental, and this movie walks a line between those two worlds without ever truly crossing into either. The science is so specifically detailed that it’s impossible to understand unless you’re a rocket scientist. The sentimental portions are handled by director Tom Vaughan as though this were a TV movie made for the Lifetime Channel.
Brendan Fraser and Keri Russell are the Crowleys. They have two wheelchair-bound terminally ill children with Pompe, a disease for which there is no cure. But Fraser discovers an eccentric scientist in Nebraska, wonderfully played by Harrison Ford, who has a theory that would create the medication that could save his kids.
The movie is not very good, but Harrison Ford’s performance is. He’s the driving force in this film. Pompe is such a rare condition (currently thought to affect between 5000 and 10,000 children worldwide) that most people won’t be familiar with the real-life story. But if you do know about it, then you should know that Ford is playing the disease’s leading researcher Dr. Robert Stonehill.
For a brisk 95 minutes, this film glides effortlessly through so many facts and events that it actually makes it seem quite easy for anyone to raise millions of dollars for medical research. The film drives along on a freshly paved express lane, skipping the side roads filled with many bumps and potholes. This is meant to be an inspirational drama, but it has the emotional depth of an insurance seminar.
DVD Double Feature: 1992’s “Lorenzo’s Oil” really got this right. It’s the true story about Augusto and Michaela Odone (Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon) who learn their son has adrenoleukodystrophy and that there is no cure. Nolte, as the boy’s father, and NOT a scientist, begins to study and learn all he can about the disease. He stuns the medical world with his own creation of a cure. This powerful and unforgettable film is truly inspirational.
