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John Q
John Quincy Archibald is a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and then finds out he cannot receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it. Therefore, he decides to take a hospital full of patients hostage until the hospital puts his son's name on the donor's list.
2002 · Directed by Nick Cassavetes · 116 min · Drama · Thriller · Crime · Screenplay in the scene database · 10 frames
Tagline
Give a father no options and you leave him no choice.
Plot
A young woman in a white BMW 5 Series drives recklessly on a mountainous winding road; she collides with a truck and is killed instantly.
Weeks earlier in Chicago, factory worker John Quincy Archibald and his wife Denise are behind on various payments. On Sunday, after church, they rush their young son Michael to the hospital after he collapses at his baseball game. Cardiologist Dr. Raymond Turner and administrator Rebecca Payne tell John and Denise that Michael needs a heart transplant, at a cost of $250,000, or he will die.
However, the couple are behind on their house and car payments and have only $1,000 in savings, and the hospital requires a $75,000 down payment simply to place Michael on the organ transplant list. To make matters worse, John's health insurance will not cover the surgery due to his workplace changing his policy as a result of them switching insurance carriers and reducing his working hours.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: James Kearns
- Written by: James Kearns
- Cinematography: Rogier Stoffers, Michael Kohnhorst
- Edited by: Dede Allen
- Music: Aaron Zigman
- Production design: Stefania Cella
- Produced by: Mark Burg, Oren Koules
Cast
- Denzel Washington as John Quincy Archibald
- James Woods as Dr. Raymond Turner
- Kimberly Elise as Denise Archibald
- Robert Duvall as Lt. Frank Grimes
- Shawn Hatosy as Mitch Quigley
- Eddie Griffin as Lester Matthews
- Kevin Connolly as Steve Maguire
- Ethan Suplee as Guard Max Conlin
- Ray Liotta as Chief Gus Monroe
- Anne Heche as Rebecca Payne
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English, Spanish
- Studios: Evolution Entertainment, New Line Cinema, Burg/Koules Productions
- Budget: $36,000,000
- Box office: $102,244,770
- Themes: chicago, illinois, parent child relationship, heart attack, kidnapping, heart disease, hostage-taking, hospital
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