All Critics (142)
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Top Critics (34)
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Fresh (32)
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Rotten (100)
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DVD (24)
A polemic in search of a plot.
Manipulative sentimentality, contrived plot and phony climax.
A sappy, melodramatic Denzel Washington vehicle that ensnares you in the standard hostage-movie scenario and doesn't let go until the director runs the whole playbook.
It pulls out more stops than that old silent serial The Perils of Pauline. Unfortunately, it's a talkie.
Cassavetes thinks he's making Dog Day Afternoon with a cause, but all he's done is to reduce everything he touches to a shrill, didactic cartoon.
...a ridiculous script that gets just about everything wrong...
Thought-provoking. Too intense for young teens.
Strands good actors in mushy, movie-of-the-week material. [Blu-ray]
The movie comes dangerously close to saying that the solution to a personal grievance is, well, terrorism, when you get right down to it.
With Hurricane, Training Day, now John Q, Denzel perfects the righteous rebel, a fine blend of hot rage and charismatic cool, declaring free health care for all.
Social messages, simplistic action, and teary melodrama are manipulatively but unsuccessfully mixed in this picture, which tries to provide a "hard" look at an honest working-class man (Washington) who loses control while trying to save his child's life
Instead of presenting the story and allowing us to draw our own conclusions, Cassavetes blatantly tells us what we should think.
Washington, Woods, and Duvall are so capable, they almost save this schlock-fest from itself.
A coercive script by James Kearns, and some middling direction by Nick Cassavetes, can't rob the movie of an undeniable, headlong crowd-pleasing power as it tackles an issue that touches us all.
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