Critical Care |  | Director: Sidney Lumet
Actors: James Spader, Kyra Sedgwick, Helen Mirren, Anne Bancroft, Albert Brooks
Studio: Live / Artisan
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.98
Buy New: $3.81
as of 3/22/2010 09:47 EDT details
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New (9) Used (19) from $2.48
Seller: wholesaledvdsforless
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 41884
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 109 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
ISBN: 0784011192
UPC: 012236046400
EAN: 9780784011195
ASIN: 0784011192
Theatrical Release Date: October 31, 1997
Release Date: February 18, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
 Overlooked but fantastic March 26, 2009
Wendy K. Laubach (Rockport, Texas)
This starts slow, then looks as though it will be a rather sour farce -- then it just veers off in another direction and becomes, for me, impossible to turn away from. I first watched this in the late 1990s. I remember Anne Bancroft and Wallace Shawn so vividly that I was shocked to see how little screen time their pivotal scenes really occupied. The opposing choices these two characters offered have stayed with me with surprising constancy in the full decade since. I was happy to find this DVD and watch the movie again, because Netflix doesn't carry it, and the movie seems lost in critical obscurity. James Spader, Albert Brooks, and Helen Mirren all give first-class performances in a sharp script that goes way beyond the initial cheap-shot bashing of our terrifying medical-industrial system. In its acid tone, this is a bit like "House" minus the puzzle-solving, but in its moral philosophy it's more like "The Screwtape Letters." I'm really glad I bought this.
Great DVD for covering topic of vegetative euthanasia January 11, 2009
Michael Worsham
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a great tragi-comedy with James Spader
as it treats the sensitive topic of euthanasia.
FIVE STAR INDEPENDENT FILM January 8, 2007
Professor Emeritus P. Bagnolo (DOWNTOWN NYC/Chic. NM USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Director, Sidney Lumet does it again. Inspirational and enlightening, Lumet highlights the struggle between what is right and what is expedient. Lumet focuses on the weakness of expediency, the strength of the almighty dollar, and the pull of conscience (for those who actually recognize that they are endowed with one), always cast aside by profiteers and how the choices are the test of character which most people fail. A great cast: Helen Mirren, James Spader, Kira Sedgewick, Albert Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Ed Herrman, and more, weigh in on profit versus Goodness, "do unto others...".
The issue at hand is one of the great ethical questions of our era pertaining to the technical capacity to keep people "Alive" virtually forever, or let them go to God.
The difficult problem is handled with a fine mix/balance of humor, satire, apoplexy, empathy and commonsense. After seeing it on IFC we bought a copy. Spader is the physician for a comatose man whose two daughters are divided on the issue of maintaining him in a vegetative state or pulling the plug. However, at stake is $10,000,000 (TEN MILLION) which goes to one sister if the plug is pulled and another if it is not. The battle widens when an army of lawyers for the hospital, the doctors, the insurance companies and each sister, weigh-in.
The moral/ethical/financial pinpoints are all exposed (the patient has iron clad insurance, which the hospital loves), and thrown in for good measure are a few mystical experiences in which both Kings of the great beyond struggle for a man's soul, and the souls of the two would be multi-millionaires.
Those who have a working conscience will love the ending.
 Good Description of Our Medical System in the USA August 9, 2005
Www.SubjectiveArt.Com (Miami, FL USA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I'm not sure about the movie itself, but it addresses the real issues of today's medical system where no one cares about patients and all they want is money.
In reality, however, it does not end like this movie. In the movie two parties come to an agreement convinced by a doctor, but I am sure people are kept alive just for a cash flow to be running. It is very sad, but that's how it is.
I like some of humors seen in the movie. Independant Film Channel has given this movie two stars, but I think it is too harsh. It should have at least three stars or more.
Great satire on the health care system July 13, 2005
Dr. Dave (Lombard, IL USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I'm a physician and I thought this was a great commentary on the health care system and not too far off the mark. James Spader gets caught in a catfight between two daughters of a dying man, either of which stands to inherit $10 million, depending on when the old man goes. Helen Mirren is the angel of Mercy/Death who is Spader's Jiminy Cricket. Ed Hermann plays the sleazy hospital attorney, and Albert Brooks is hysterical as an old physician who has the perspective of his many years. His memorable line about physicians: "We used to be gods. Now we are glorified auto mechanics."
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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