Nick Cassavetes' film stars Denzel Washington as John Q Archibald, a blue collar worker who's been "downsized". When his son Mike (Daniel E. Smith) collapses at a baseball game and is diagnosed as needing a heart transplant, John is convinced his insurance will cover it. It won't: he needs $250,000 and can only raise $20,000.
As the hospital administrator Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche) refuses treatment and cardiologist Raymond Turner (James Woods) looks helplessly on, John takes the only course he sees open and takes them and the rest of the Emergency Room - staff and patients alike - hostage. As grizzled negotiator Frank Grimes (Robert Duvall) and hot-shot police chief Gus Monroe (Ray Liotta) arrive, the question is whether John will succeed in getting his son a heart or whether he will end up the victim of a police marksman.
Cassavetes had a personal stake in the film - at the time his daughter was on a donated organ recipient list - and the film also strikes a political nerve, exposing the government-encouraged withdrawal of health benefits for low-paid workers, leaving them at the mercy of under-funded public medicine and at the back of the queue for organ donation. The cast, sprinkled with Oscar winners and nominees, never try and outshine each other, and Washington's central performance, ranging from righteous anger at the system to desperate worry at his son's plight, carries the drama of the film beyond its issues.
John Q is a Film programme that first aired in 2002 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
