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Extraordinary Measures

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Grames

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Now this is a movie I can recommend without reservation.

An executive at a big pharmacuetical company (Brendan Fraser) faces the reality of the impending deaths of two of his children from a rare medical condition and does something about it. He allies with a mean old man (Harrison Ford) who is the scientist with the potential to create a medicine to save their lives. Then we get series of realistic portraits of actual people acting ruthlessly rational in their profit seeking, their deal cutting, their objectivity toward science and even their management practices because that is what it takes to get things done and save lives in the real world. There is one scene showing the executive in question is tempted to steal the medicine his children need, but is stopped by the mean old scientist. This is clearly shown as a self-destructive emotional breakdown, where a lesser movie would present this as an agonizing ethical dilemma. (I don't know if that actually happened in this supposedly true story, but it is great drama and I love the different spin.) The story is wrapped up with the children receiving their medicine, and the clinical manifestation of the successful treatment (being elliptical here to prevent a small spoiler) is just a perfect concretization of what all the abstract struggling was about.

Inspiring.

Edited by Grames
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Sounds great. Now I don't know which to see this coming weekend, this one or Blind Side? I only have time for one, which do you recommend?

I haven't seen Blindside because I have surmised there is too much Christian piety in it for my taste. God is hardly even referenced at all in Extraordinary Measures. Hope that helps.

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