Admirable in intent, but dull as ditchwater, Nick (son of John) Cassavettes’ latest offering does little to raise the blood pressure, despite its potentially intriguing premise. John Q. tries to be a searing indictment of America’s ruthlessly Darwininan healthcare system, but

is just far too preposterous to be credible, a situation that the piss-poor script, daft plot and largely disinterested acting doesn’t exactly help.

What life the film possesses is largely thanks to the eternally reliable Denzel Washington, exuding as much icy passion as possible in the central role as a (black) father whose son collapses on the baseball field, and gets rushed to hoispital, thereupon to be informed that he is in pretty bad need of a heart transplant. The land of the free being what it is, the poor fucker’s dad unfortunately doesn’t have enough ‘health insurance’ to cover the operation, so he is yanked off the donor list.

Deranged and desperate daddy then understandably flies off the handle, and holds the emergency room hostage, hoping to force the doctors into action. Washington is as watchable as ever, but any potential for biting social realism is hopelessly undercut by the generally all-over-the-place nature of the narrative, with sleepwalk appearances by such as Robert Duvall, Ray Liotta, James Woods and Anne Heche.

Pretty poor stuff.