John Q

This is a movie I can relate to. What do you do when your child is dying and no one will help him simply because you’re poor and can’t afford to pay them, This is the quandary that the young father of this film finds himself in and the way he take matters into his own hands is the plot of this story.

John Quincy Archibald (played by Denzel Washington) is a poor Chicago factory worker whose ten-year-old son is dying of heart failure. He needs a new heart, but because the family has no health insurance, the hospital will not even consider performing the surgery that will save the child’s life.

That is when Archibald takes matters into his own hands, holding an entire emergency room hostage at gunpoint until someone — anyone — will perform the life-saving surgery that his son so desperately needs.

This film is raw drama and it leads one to ponder the philosophical questions of life. Just how far is it acceptable to go in order to save the life of someone you love, Is it ever justified to put the lives of others in danger just to save the life of one close to you,

There is a lot of raw emotion in this film, along with a great human interest story. In today’s turbulent times I can well imagine a desperate parent resorting to something like this, and that’s what makes the film so heart-wrenching. The scary thing is, I could well imagine doing something like this myself.