Dir. Tom Vaughn, USA, 105mins, 2009

Cast: Brendan Fraser, Harrison Ford, Keri Russell, Meredith Droeger, Jared Harris

Review by Matthew Rodgers

It feels kinda harsh to criticise a movie with such good intentions as this medical melodrama, because despite its impressive casting this still opens with the foreboding “inspired by true events” credit and can never shake free from the constraints of its soft focus, saccharine coated, Hallmark movie-of-the-week clichés.

John and Eileen Crowley (Fraser and Russell) are blessed with three young children and all of the responsibilities and sacrifices that come with raising a little army. What makes this seemingly normal family the subject of CBS' first feature film foray is that Megan and Patrick suffer from a rare genetic disorder that leads to muscular deterioration and an extremely short life expectancy. Rather than watch their kids fight a losing battle, they turn to curmudgeonly specialist, Dr Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford) in an attempt to find a miracle cure.

From Patch Adams to last years My Sisters Keeper , there have been plenty of movies depicting the plight of sick children, all of which prod at the tear ducts in an attempt to use the emotional response to cover the fact that the films themselves aren't much cop. Guess what? Extraordinary Measures can join that less than illustrious company.

This is dull from the get go, depicting a family with perma-grinned faces, in what feels like an expensive private health care advert stretched over two hours, with repetitive genome jargon banded around as a substitute for dialogue. And there's that guilt again at such a negative reaction, once again tempered by the knowledge that even if this is an inspirational true story, why tell it in such an uninspired way?

The leads don't help; whilst it's nice to see a more restrained Fraser, without his hat, whip, and heightened over-acting, he never quite convinces as the conflicted father. As for the other headliner accustomed to carrying similar utilities, Harrison Ford has probably never had a script that required him to make more than one joke about his toiletry habits until now, and even Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 's dialogue was better than this. His motivation here is to act either grumpy or shouty, and he does both very well, but it's hardly a stretch.

The narrative never really depicts much of a struggle either, any dilemmas are of the personal variety, and the fact that Crowley's financial difficulties are resolved so easily at every hurdle gives this too much of a Hollywood sugar-coating when the agenda should have been to strive for realism, and as a side-effect any dramatic tension goes out the window.

Little more than a made-for-TV movie that's managed to rope in a couple of decent stars looking for a big fat pay cheque. Take severe measures to avoid this, a documentary on the disease would have been much more effective because there is nothing extraordinary about this.