Critical Care

This nasty little film is veteran director Sidney Lumet's uncharacteristically amateurish attempt at medical satire. Its flaws lie not in the performances (the degree of talent represented in the picture is substantial), but in Steven S. Schwartz's misguided screenplay. Rather than tackle issues with wit and intelligence, Schwartz chooses to use insultingly phony characters to reveal the faults of the modern health care machine through their broadly drawn flaws. A painful exercise in unrealized potential.