Extreme Measures
Director: Michael Apted
Year: 1996
Country: USA
Duration: 130 mins
Rating: 15
Cast: Hugh Grant, Gene Hackman, Sarah Jessica Parker
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Guy Luthan (Hugh Grant), a British doctor serving a residence in a hospital in New York City, is very puzzled by a patient brought to the emergency room one night. Naked, disoriented, and bearing a hospital bracelet and a fresh surgical scar, the mystery man is suffering from a baffling variety of symptoms, and though he dies not long after he's admitted, Luthan cannot get the patient out of his mind. When he asks to see the records on the patient a few days later, he is told they no longer exist, and the more he digs, the more he is convinced that someone knows something they are not telling. Against the advice of his friend Jodie Trammel (Sarah Jessica Parker), a nurse and colleague, and the instructions of his superiors, Luthan keeps digging into this and other strange cases that have come through the hospital lately. Luthan's sleuthing eventually brings him to the door of Dr. Lawrence Myrick (Gene Hackman), a well-known surgeon who is doing research in experimental surgery that could allow patients with severe spinal injuries to walk again. While Myrick's work is done with the most noble of intentions, there turns out to be a sinister undercurrent to his research techniques.