Day: January 26, 2012

Extraordinary is one of my favorite words. Especially if you say it for real, and not the shortened way (Extrordinary). Extra. Ordinary. That means beyond ordinary. It means AWESOME.

Well, for Extraordinary Measures, I figured it would be about spies or secrets or government or something. I mean. Look at the cast! Nope. It is a feel good movie about curing diseases. Damn it!

Well, at least we might get some hxc science.

Brendan Fraser plays high up not CEO but business guy who does something. What does he do? Not important. He leaves that job in the movie. But it has nice health insurance. That is good, because out of 3 children, the last two have Pompe disease. Which means something, but just picture kids in electrical wheelchairs, with a fatal disease that means they probably wont make it to 10.

But when the doctor tells him that his two children will both probably die within a year, him and his wife, Keri Russell, freak out. But Brendan freaks out more, leaves working during an “important meeting” and flies out to Nebraska to find Harrison Ford, MD. Ford is a better theorist than he is a scientist, and he believes he knows how to help cure Pompe disease. But he’d need money, and it will take awhile. Brendan says he an get him that money in a month (half a million dollars!).

Well, he only gets $90k. But that is way better than expected. So Ford, grumpy old Ford, says they will have to start their own business and lab, get money from investors, to work on this. But he needs a CEO to do it, and even though there are plenty more people qualified than Brendan, none of them would have the same drive that he has (You know. Trying to save TWO kids). So he quits his job on a gamble. Alan Ruck (who has one scene) tells him it is crazy, but you know one, you have to be crazy sometimes.

So the movie tells of the tale of them trying to get funds, trying to rush science, and do whatever it takes, even if it means their pride have to take a bashing, to find and develop a cure. For added guilt, Coutney B. Vance is a friend of theirs, who also has two children with the disease.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” “Alive.”

So, this is a feel good movie, based off of the real story. So here are some spoilers. Yes, they find a “cure”. Or at least one one that if administered to infants can get rid of it, but one given to older children can get rid of the dying thing (not the whole, cant walk and etc thing). Yes, the children are still alive today (Posted Jan 26, 2012, for anyone reading this in the 2030s or whenever in the future). Yes, pharmaceutical companies are bitches. Also, no cows were harmed in this movie.

I wasn’t sure if Ford was the best choice to play scientists looking to start his own biotech company. Because he just seems super old. But hey, its Fords movie, so he will be a big role if he wants to! Fraser didn’t entirely mess up the movie either. His goofiness was appropriate, and it seemed like he really cared for these fake, not really Pompe looking kids of his. But everything is expected, and really, nothing too different about this movie and other extraordinary measure like movies.

Brotherhood. Are you in or out? That is the tagline. I didn’t even notice that the “e” in brotherhood was the greek E. But hey. Frat related movie. Not gang related. My bad.

Well, technically you can probably call fraternities gangs. Right?

Lou Taylor Pucci plays Kevin, pictured above. He is a normal white privileged member of society. So of course he wants to be in a frat! Well first he has to pass initiation. They take a van full of initiates on the road, in a dark van. Their goal? To stop at different gas stations, give them a gun and a ski mask, and have them steal $19.10 from the store. That being the year they were founded. Well the first two go off without a hitch.

Trevor Morgan, or Adam Buckley (the only character with a last name. You know what that means) even does it successfully. Because there is another frat guy at the door stopping them and giving them the change. You know, they are just testing to see how willing they are to go with it!

Well as you can see above. Something goes wrong. They go to the wrong store, so a hold up actually happens. The clerk (Arlen Escarpeta) doesn’t like this, and shoots back. He also knew Adam from high school. Adam and Frank (Jon Foster) try and stop it before things go badly, but they don’t. Someone gets shot. Oh well, cover up time.

This happens in the first 5-6 minutes of the film. What occurs after that is a serious of actions that just escalate further. They obviously don’t want to go to the cops/hospital, because they are in the wrong here. But will their other frat shenanigans accidentally push this issue a lot further?

Yes. Yes it will.

From fires, to car accidents, to police, to kidnapping, to trunks, to rape, to actual robbery, to beer. Pretty much everything keeps going wrong. Adam Buckley from the start doesn’t care about the consequences, he wants to help Kevin. Frank, the fratleader, wants to do everything else. Can Adam turn his back on his frat, to do the right thing? Maybe.

I liked this movie a lot more than I thought. It was pretty damn intense from the first robbery scene on. Some may argue that the main characters are kind of dumb. I like to assume they are mostly kind of drunk, and young college students. Of course they are dumb. Thinking mostly of themselves. There is elements of “Action” in the movie, but the dramatic parts take the cake. Once the final scene happens, you can tell collectively everyone gave up the lies. They knew they were fucked. It was great.