CASEY PHILLIPS: The problem with "Extraordinary Measures" (or "Patch Adams" or "My Sister's Keeper") is that sick children are so inherently sympathetic that directors can rely on them too much. While it's not without merit, "Extraordinary Measures" doesn't entirely avoid leaning on this crutch.
Meredith Droeger and Diego Velazquez play two children who have Pompe disease, which has left them dependent on wheelchairs and weak. Still, they're puckish, likable little tykes. Such a role is attention-grabbing, but it doesn't take much effort. If you're young, have a couple of teeth missing and can cough convincingly, audiences will adore you. That kind of storytelling is lazy. That's why Lifetime can produce movies on a shoestring budget and still melt your heart.
HOLLY LEBER: I tend to find Lifetime movies more eye-rolling than heart-melting. Casey's right, though, this type of movie is inherently manipulative; what sort of heartless individual doesn't want dying kids to live?
Fortunately, "Extraordinary Measures" doesn't go overboard. I expected scene after scene of tearful hand-wringing, lengthy emotional speeches and falling-to-the-knees breakdowns. There are a few.
However, the movie stays out of Lifetime territory with credible performances by Brendan Fraser and Keri Russell as John and Aileen Crowley, parents struggling to keep their kids alive. (The Lifetime version would have starred Jason London and Tracey Gold.) Both resisted the urge to go too big in their performances, instead approaching the characters as people for whom this struggle is a part of life. I especially appreciated Russell's restraint. Women are too often written as hysterical in these types of roles. Credit for that also goes to screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs.
CASEY: "Extraordinary Measures" is most intriguing when there are no sick kids around. The film's primary focus, to its ultimate benefit, is on the profit-driven inner workings of the biotech research and manufacturing industry, similar to films like "Erin Brokovich" and "The Insider."
Fraser's desperate, business-savvy dad and Harrison Ford's gruff, independent researcher (Dr. Robert Stonehill) have excellent, if occasionally volatile, chemistry. Accepting Ford as a genius biochemist is a tough sell, but his scruffy-faced outrage was refreshing among all the suits, lab coats and sick kids.
HOLLY: Ford's character wants to help these kids, but he's also a self-centered lab jockey looking to complete his magnum opus, and that gets in the way. Sure, he softens a bit, but he never becomes a marshmallow.
Watching the corporate turmoil of it all is interesting. You'd like to think that all anyone would care about is curing the sick (especially the sick kids), but certain people's jobs center around making money and not getting sued, often in that order.
"Extraordinary Measures" is by no means extraordinary, but it could have been so much worse.
E-mail Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com. E-mail Holly Leber at hleber@timesfreepress.com.
Critics' ratings
Casey Phillips: 3/5
Holly Leber: 3/5
* Movie: "Extraordinary Measures."
* Starring: Brendan Fraser, Keri Russell and Harrison Ford.
* Rating: PG for thematic material, language and a mild suggestive moment.
* Synopsis: The father of two children with a rare genetic disease commits himself fully to seeking out a researcher who might have a cure. Based on Geeta Anand's book, "The Cure."