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Extraordinary Measures

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 14 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Robert Nelson Jacobs
Directed by: Tom Vaughan
Release Date:
Theatrical: January 22, 2010
Running Time: 106 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG for thematic material, language and a mild suggestive moment
Starring Harrison Ford, Brendan Fraser, Keri Russell, and Courtney B. Vance
From his working class roots, John Crowley has finally begun to taste success in corporate America. Supported by his beautiful wife Aileen and their three children, John is on the fast track. But just as his career is taking off, Crowley walks away from it all when his two youngest children, Megan and Patrick, are diagnosed with a fatal disease. With Aileen by his side, harnessing all of his skill and determination, Crowley teams up with a brilliant, but unappreciated and unconventional scientist, Dr. Robert Stonehill. Together they form a bio-tech company focused on developing a life-saving drug. One driven to prove himself and his theories, the other by a chance to save his children, this unlikely alliance eventually develops into mutual respect as they battle the medical and business establishments in a fight against the system – and time. But, at the last minute, when it appears that a solution has been found, the relationship between the two men faces a final test - the outcome of which will affect the fate of John's children. (CBS Films)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly Kate Ward
Hardly an extraordinary movie. In fact, it's hard to believe that this schmaltzy film found its home on the big screen rather than the Hallmark Channel. But I dare you not to feel something at its conclusion.
Read Full Review >Boxoffice Magazine Pete Hammond
Like "The Blind Side," this is an inspiring and compelling true story. Harrison Ford is at the top of his game in this remarkable film.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
Fraser and Ford are both actors of limited range who can be extremely appealing in the right role, and here, they're both ideally cast.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs affirms life and jerks tears with welcome degrees of humor and muscle.
Read Full Review >New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott
It's a nice, feel-good story with an appealing cast and strong production values.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
Extraordinary Measures has a soppy piano-and-strings score, but the primal fear of loss sharpens every scene.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The storytelling and the visual style are rarely more than workmanlike, and the big scenes arrive punctually and are played with minimal nuance.
Read Full Review >Arizona Republic Bill Goodykoontz
The overall feel is one of a generic, feel-good drama, albeit one with Harrison Ford stomping around most of the time as if someone kicked him in the shins. One suspects that this is a story that deserved better.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
There’s something off-putting about this film’s optimism: After all, how many people can afford to do what Crowley did?
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Basically “Lorenzo’s Oil” without the earlier film’s visual flair.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
For real sparks keep a look out for Jared Harris in a supporting role that injects a mildly diverting note of corporate intrigue into an otherwise unsurprising procedural.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The most intriguing aspects of Extraordinary Measures relate to the behind-the-scenes politicking that goes on to keep the drug development on track, although the screenplay cheats toward the end (presumably because of time constraints and a concern that too much detail might bore audiences).
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey
The story is poignant and compelling, but ultimately the film doesn't have the heft it needs to fill out the big screen.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole
Best when Fraser is on screen. Ian McKellen, who starred with Fraser in "Gods and Monsters," called him the most natural actor he'd worked with, marvelling at Fraser's ability to disappear into roles.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
Sometimes feels like one of those "disease of the week" TV movies from the 1970s.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Nick Pinkerton
Fraser is open and appealing, and Ford, his acting mostly isolated in the right corner of his mouth, does well enough with a secondary part.
Read Full Review >Variety Rob Nelson
Doesn't reach far beyond its smallscreen genotype as a disease-of-the-week telepic, despite the star power of Brendan Fraser as the desperate dad and Harrison Ford as an eccentric, ornery researcher.
Read Full Review >St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams
There's nothing cinematic about this turgid tearjerker except the slumming presence of movie star Harrison Ford.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
An ordinary film with ordinary characters in a story too big for it. Life has been reduced to a Lifetime movie.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The results feel a little harried, as if the focus issues were never really solved.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
For this dynamic to work, the actors need to be of complementary temperament and equal power. This is not the case.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson
The film closely follows the pattern of 1992’s "Lorenzo’s Oil," but with fewer filmmaking risks, visceral emotions, and colorful, outsized characters.
Read Full Review >Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore
Extraordinary Measures isn’t extraordinary. It’s simply safe.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Harrison Ford has obviously enrolled in the Al Pacino School of Old Man Acting. He yells, sputters and glowers his way through the ultra-ordinary and well-intentioned Extraordinary Measures.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli
At times, the script gets too dense with technicalities and boardroom arguments for lay folk to comprehend. But at its best, it humanizes the plight of families who cope day-to-day with disabling illness
Read Full Review >Time Out New York Keith Uhlich
Sadly, “Get out of my lab!” is not the new “Get off my plane!”
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Most of the movie unfolds in such a dull manner.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Everything about this excruciatingly dull, talky film screams made-for-network-TV: The I'm-only-here-for-a-paycheck performances by famous actors; the Crate and Barrel catalog mise-en-scene; the syrupy, heartwarming score that lays the pathos on so thickly you gag on it.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Extraordinary Measures requires extraordinary tolerance for bathos, bombast and plain old unpleasantness.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
Looks and tastes an awful lot like a TV movie of the week.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Mike S. gave it a10:
A moving film that kept me interested. A must see in my opinion.
Mark V. gave it a10:
Wow! Great movie. One of the best I've ever seen. Way better than I expected. This is a wonderful example of real storytelling. Not the fake stuff where CGI and violence are mistaken for "good storytelling." Such a refreshing cinematic experience. I was pleasantly surprised. Fraser, Ford and the young actress Droeger all gave outstanding performances. I found Fraser very believable as the father. This is the best work I've ever seen from him. He did a fantastic job conveying the emotions of a father who knows he could lose his children at any moment, but is determined to save them at all costs. His performance was so subtle and very realistic. Droeger was adorable! She really stood out. Meredith Droeger. Remember that name. The kid's got major talent. Ford was good also. He nailed the role of a grumpy, anti-social scientist. That's the character... and Ford nailed it. I'll definitely be seeing this one again. I wish Hollywood would make more films like this that reflect the best parts of humanity. This is a movie that was perfectly scripted, perfectly cast, and perfectly acted. Based on a true story. Love it! Beautiful. Fantastic movie.
Bob S. gave it a0:
Grade A garbage.
Deborah R. gave it a9:
Very emotional with a pretty accurate view of the walls and barriers that seem impossible to overcome...what a story to tell and it was done well with incredible photography of the pacific northwest and the other locations. powerful on multiple levels.
Chad S gave it a7:
Since neither Harrison Ford nor Brendan Fraser speak in a thick Italian accent, how could "Extraordinary Measures" ever begin to measure up with George Miller's much-lauded "Lorenzo's Oil"? It can't, but that's okay, since this story about the cure for Pompei disease will absorb the moviegoer, despite both actors' boring American accents, with its pointed depiction of the politics and commerce that comes with the territory of the drug manufacturing business. For the most part, such misshapen priorities practiced by these biochemical overseers help transform the inevitable melodrama generated by the Crowleys(Fraser and Keri Russell) and their dying moppets into real drama, because most people are sick and tired of greedy corporate types. John Crowley, a corporate suit himself, knows how the game is played, in which saving lives can sometimes be an afterthought to the more pressing matter of long-term profitability. He plays the game. Dr. Stonehill(Harrison Ford), the scientist that John recruits from the University of Nebraska, on the other hand, abhors compromise, and it's this dynamic between the commonsensiblist and the naif that drives this imperfect film toward near-transcendence of the made-for-television trappings that the sick child sub-genre of "chick-flicks" entails. Apart from the visual flair of the "Mad Max" helmer, what really busted "Lorenzo's Oil" out from the Lifetime movie ghetto were the harrowing scenes that depicted the boy's degenerative ailment as a trial of hellish proportions, which went beyond the by-the-numbers emotional manipulation of doomed children battling their oncoming untimely demises. The moviegoer felt Lorenzo's pain, and the parents' pain, in spades, because the kid really looked like he was dying. The filmmaker wasn't going for a die-cute, like the little boy in "Extraordinary Measures" who can't throw bread to a pond full of ducks, or the little girl who needs help winning a stuffed penguin from a carnival game. Only the hardest of hearts, however, won't respond to this shameless, but effective attempt, to garner audience sympathy. So while rallying moviegoers to root for dying children is like shooting fish in a barrel, "Extraordinary Measures" does manage to put capitalism on trial, in scenes such as the one where John takes desperate measures to save his children, after he's told what is and what's not cost-efficient.
Evan B. gave it a10:
Fantastic movie! Hollywood should make more inspirational films like this that the whole family can enjoy. Well done!
