Rating: 
Summary: Roll the ugliness.
Review: Without a doubt the worst movie I have ever seen. This is a blatant propaganda film about the poor health care system in this country. I know the system is bad, but do I need a movie with horrible dialogue and stereotyped characters to tell me this? The writing for this film is so unoriginal and uninspired. It sounds as though the writer of the screenplay was working under serious time constraints. Denzel's repeated cries of "Sick/Help! Sick/Help!" is just one example. I almost puked at the end when Denzel's little boy repeats one of Denzel's lines from earlier in the film: "don't say goodbye, say see you later," or something like that. Holy smokes! Now that's original writing! I could go on and on. Please don't waste your time or money.
Rating: 
Summary: Made me cry
Review: Powerful drama starring Denzel Washington as a father pushed over the edge. I cried so much during this movie. Best drama of the year. Why this movie didn't get nominated for an Oscar is questionable. Make sure you have a box of tissues.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad Movie with a Decent Message
Review: John Q is very predictable and unrealistic. It has its moments, but you can pretty much figure out most of the movie about a quarter of the way through it. The biggest problem is the way people react to different situations throughout the film. This makes it very unbelievable and almost laughable. The overall message of the film about our healthcare system is alright, but it's something I think most people are aware of. The only thing good about this movie is Denzel Washington. As always, he does an excellent job with his character. Not worth buying or even watching unless you are a huge Denzel fan.
Rating:
Summary: A shameless commercial for HillaryCare
Review: I can only say that the first thirty minutes of this movie blows...that's when we turned it off. An impossibly contrived nice, good looking black family; thrown into an impossibly contrived tragic circumstance, confronted by impossibly contrived evil, uncaring healthcare bean-counters who are all conspicuously Caucasian. I'm sure in the following ninety minutes our hero would single handedly reform the US healthcare system into an impossibly contrived, well-oiled machine where nobody dies and everything is "free" down to the last cough-drop.
Rating: 
Summary: A HillaryCare Infomercial...
Review: Ok. I rented this movie and watched it based on a recommendation from friends. I also like Ray Liotta, Robert Duvall and sometimes Denzel Washington. The movie wasn't bad, hence the 3 stars, but... we have here a factory worker who didn't bother to keep up on what type of insurance his employer offered -- they switched to an HMO -- and was surprised to learn he no longer had a PPO (ahhh, the age of unaccountability, i.e. it's always someone else's fault). Now, who out there in the working world doesn't get bombarded by mail, memos, etc., when there is ANY change to your employer-matched health insurance?? Come on. And by the way, employer-matched health insurance is a BENEFIT, not an obligation. Liberals seem to always forget that fact. Yeah, let's suck even more taxes from the working class to pay for a UNIVERSAL (read socialist) health care system, where, sure, yeah right, it will pay for heart transplants. Name one government run system that is more efficient and effective than what the private sector can offer... You think HMO's are bad, try letting the government run a health care system... An entertaining movie anyway, if you can get past the 1-minute HillaryCare/vast-left-wing-liberal-media propaganda segment toward the end.
Rating:
Summary: Denzel???
Review: Denzel, what happened buddy? I saw Denzel on Oprah just before the release of "John Q" speaking about his upcoming movie. It sounded dashing, heartwarming, and daring. The trailers gave me the same feeling.
"John Q" is all the things I have described...at least for 45 minutes. Denzel and the true heartbreaking tale of a father who gets shuffled through HMO LALA land and his desperate paternal outreach to save his son's life. The movie works to a point. It's a good formula...Father loves son, son is ill and needs a transplant...father will do anything for the son. But what happened? Once John Q, (Washington) decides to hold a hospital hostage to get his demand met...we are bombarded with ridiculousness. There just HAS to be a pregnant woman about to give birth...a thief, a guard, and a wife beater. These are our main characters? John Q's hostages are so annoyingly sereotyped it makes you belt out "Come On!" sporadically throughout the movie. On the brighter side...Denzel's performance is believable, real, and at moments so sensitive I couldn't help but be a part of the movie. I could feel his anger and pain. It's hard to believe this IS the same man from "Training Day". Without all the hooplah over the "characters" being held hostage and parts of the movie sounding like a documentary about the horrors of HMO'S, this movie would have succeeded. 1 star taken away for bad characters in a crisis
1 star taken away for the HMO-bored-head-nod-scenes.
Otherwise..hey..it's still a Denzel film. You have to watch them all.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding performances...
Review: John Q. is by far a heart-wrenching story and brutally honest when it comes to the truth about America's health care system. This nation is a democracy, the citizens are what make this country run, it proves that health care should be a right and not a privilege.
Rating:
Summary: Could it happen?
Review: Unfortunately, with the state of health care in the US today, this movie may not be too far off. That being said, this movie is very predictable. Whatever you expect is going to happen most likely will. The characters are caricatures. They all act just the way they're supposed to. But, in the end, you'll feel good about watching. And thats a good thing!
Rating:
Summary: Big-time misfire
Review: The dialogue is riddled with cliches, the humor is unfunny, the supporting characters are caricatures, the suspense is tepid, some of the heart-tug scenes made me want to run screaming from the room. The first hour seemed like two. We don't learn the significance of the opening scene until much later, and when we do there's no payoff, no "aha." We are forced to wade through a ton of emotional muck to arrive at a totally predictable ending. Other than that, not a bad flick!
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing and heartstring-tugging
Review: What would you do if your child was dying and the only way he or she could be saved was to have a heart transplant? What if you were told your insurance wouldn't cover it, and that the hospital (and the surgeon) refused to go ahead with the surgery unless you had 30% of the payment handy to hand over? Then what if no matter who you talked to, no one could help, and no matter how much money was raised, it always fell short of the goal - and precious few seemed to care if your child lived or died? What if your spouse then shouted at you to DO something? What would you do? I was on the edge of my seat, impatient to find out what would happen next. Would the child die? Would the mean lady hospital administrator die? Would the half-decent cop prevail over the slime who cared more about his reputation than anything else? Would John Q. sacrifice himself in order to save his son? Who is on John's side? The most satisfying answer was to the following question: Can a truly good-hearted human being take such drastic measures (but with good intentions even to strangers) in order to try and save his son, or is he really a careless, violent man who has to have his way and cares nothing about the cost to innocent people?
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