Pompe And Circumstance

[January 20th, 2010]

Any discussion of Extraordinary Measures must begin with an acknowledgement of That Scene—an exchange that has already achieved online notoriety, and is a constant source of pride for Portlanders who know it was filmed here. In the scene, first revealed in television advertising, tender-but-indomitable father Brendan Fraser is meeting with irascible-but-brilliant scientist Harrison Ford, and suggests there is still time to find a cure for the obscure disease that has stricken Fraser’s children, although they will have to work around the clock. “I already work around the clock!” Ford bellows, employing the exact tone and volume he used last year to suggest that Brüno go fuck himself. This is indeed an extraordinary scene. I have just watched it again. But I am happy to inform you it is not the only time Ford yells during the film. In fact, Ford spends most of his screen time yelling, or looking like he wants to yell. My personal favorite of these outbursts is when he screams at Fraser, “Why don’t you just put my balls in a jelly jar?” although I am also partial to the scene in which a dying child asks him what he does for fun and, after some consideration, he responds: “Mostly I just work. A little bass fishing once in a while.”

Extraordinary Measures is not just a disease-of-the-week movie. It’s a disease-of-the-week movie with Harrison Ford being homespun, grumpy and weird. Ford often seems annoyed to be in this movie, and his lashing out improves it. This is enough to make Extraordinary Measures the best Hollywood commercial project to be shot in Portland in the past decade, beating out the serial killer movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and the serial killer movie starring Diane Lane. It is certainly the first to consider the difficulty of navigating the MAX trains while holding a bouquet of balloons. This is where we first meet Brendan Fraser (himself ballooned rather), who is late for his adorable daughter’s birthday party, though she doesn’t really mind because she is very busy dying. She and her little brother have Pompe disease, a rare genetic disorder that weakens muscles and causes bodily organs to swell, thanks to a missing enzyme that can perhaps be restored with a formula pioneered by—yep—Harrison Ford. So Fraser travels to Nebraska (probably played by Vancouver, Wash.), buys Ford a Budweiser longneck, and talks him into starting an independent biotech lab with money Fraser does not have but will find so long as Ford doesn’t yell at the donors too much.

I probably do not need to tell you Extraordinary Measures is based on a true story—and like all true stories, it is in its details less inspirational than sort of odd. In real life, Fraser’s character lived in New Jersey, and the cure he funded with $27 million of venture capital came from the cells of hamster ovaries. I wish the movie had contained a scene where Fraser explained this breakthrough to his adorable children, but you review the movie that was made, not the movie you wish had been made. It is also worth noting that Ford’s character is a composite of many research scientists, and I can only imagine how much more fun the film would be if it contained many Harrison Fords, all yelling, but again, you dance with them what brung you.

And honestly, Extraordinary Measures is pretty enjoyable. As the first theatrical release from CBS Films, it is unfortunately shot in the network’s house style—symmetrically framed shots, with actors bathed in a gauzy angelic glow—but the performances are very good (though it is not pleasant to watch Brendan Fraser cry). If you want to see a movie about a family triumphing against the odds and glowing slightly, you are unlikely to do much better. If someone who has sex with you wants to see a movie about a family triumphing against the odds and glowing slightly, at least you’ll have angry Harrison Ford, and that helps a lot. Really, the only substantive failing of the picture is that it is 105 minutes long, when it could easily have gotten the job done in 90. For all the talk of working faster, somebody should have kept an eye on the clock.