Taglines: Give a father no options and you leave him no choice.
John Q movie storyline. A national health care crisis in the United States yields this tense drama from screenwriter James Kearns and director Nick Cassavetes, who experienced a real-life dilemma with his daughter’s congenital heart disease that mirrors the one in this film. Denzel Washington stars as John Q. Archibald, a factory worker facing financial hardship as a result of reduced hours in his workplace.
When his young son, Michael (Daniel E. Smith), is stricken during a baseball game, John and his wife, Denise (Kimberly Elise), discover that their child is in need of an emergency heart transplant. Although the Archibalds have health insurance, they are informed by hospital administrator Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche) that their policy doesn’t cover such an expensive procedure. Unable to raise the money himself, John persuades the hospital’s compassionate cardiac surgeon, Dr. Raymond Turner (James Woods), to waive his lofty fee, but is still left with too much of a financial burden to bear.
With no recourse but to take his son home to die, John snaps and holds the staff and patients of the hospital’s emergency room hostage at gunpoint. John is soon a media hero, the focus of intense news coverage, even as police chief Gus Monroe (Ray Liotta) and hostage negotiator Frank Grimes (Robert Duvall) try to resolve the situation before it leads to bloodshed.
John Q. is a 2002 American crime film starring Denzel Washington and directed by Nick Cassavetes. The film tells the story of John Quincy Archibald (Denzel Washington), a father and husband whose son is diagnosed with an enlarged heart and finds out he is unable to receive a transplant because HMO insurance will not cover it, before he decides to hold up the hospital and force them to do it.
The film co-stars Kimberly Elise, Robert Duvall, Anne Heche, James Woods and Ray Liotta. The film was shot in Toronto, Hamilton, Ontario, and Canmore, Alberta, although the story takes place in Chicago. Shooting took place for 60 days from August 7 to November 3, 2000.
John Q (2002)
Directed by: Nick Cassavates
Starring: Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall, James Woods, Anne Heche, Eddie Griffin, Kimberly Elise, Ray Liotta, Daniel E. Smith, Shawn Hatosy, Vanessa Branch, Stephanie Moore, Larissa Laskin
Screenplay by: James Kearns
Production Design by: Stefania Cella
Cinematography by: Stefania Cella
Film Editing by: Dede Allen
Costume Design by: Beatrix Aruna Pasztor
Set Decoration by: Clive Thomasson
Art Direction by: Thomas Carnegie, Elis Y. Lam
Music by: Aaron Zigman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, language and intense thematic elements.
Distributed by: New Line Cinema
Release Date: February 15, 2002
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