John Q

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

An all-stops-out rabble-rouser that hurls a broadside at America's medical insurance crisis.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

It's hard to imagine how anyone could remain dry-eyed while watching the scene in which John Q. tries to cram in a lifetime of fatherhood advice in a goodbye speech to his son.

USA Today Claudia Puig

One can excuse the movie's missteps and melodramatic moments in the greater interest of the strong statement it makes about our health care system.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

This is an A-list cast toiling on a C-list screenplay.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

Not a movie but a live-action agitprop cartoon so shameless and coarse, it's almost funny.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

It's as forgettable as they come.

Slate David Edelstein

Denzel Washington is so powerfully earnest an actor that you never want to laugh at him -- even when you ought to be in stitches.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The movie could have used a brain transplant. It doesn't explore injustice -- it just exploits it.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Like a tone-deaf singer at a benefit concert, John Q. is a bad movie appearing on behalf of a good cause.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

More hokey than heartfelt.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Waste in the health care system is deplorable, but waste on the movie screen isn't so great either.

Film Threat Michael Dequina

With its simplistic, didactic approach, the presence of a top-flight ensemble is the only thing separating John Q from your average TV movie of the week.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Washington's fire and righteous anger can only do so much, and the token grit amounts to a few grains of sand in the sentimental machinery.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

It's not honest, and it's certainly no solution.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Turns out to be hopelessly mediocre -- a poorly scripted, preachy fable that forgets about unfolding a coherent, believable story in its zeal to spread propaganda.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Gripping, if manipulative and somewhat preposterous, drama.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

A well-intentioned but self-defeatingly manipulative film that amounts to an impassioned commercial for national health care.

LA Weekly John Patterson

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.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The movie's tone and plot twists are so ludicrously overwrought that even Washington's admirably restrained performance -- can't rescue it from its own excesses.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The movie goes awry from the opening shots.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The kind of movie Mad magazine prays for. It is so earnest, so overwrought and so wildly implausible that it begs to be parodied.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Plays less like an exposé than a piece of exploitation, its clear divide between good and evil allowing no breathing room for real drama.

The New Yorker David Denby

Falls below even minimal standards of dramatic decency. John Q is a trashy, opportunistic piece of pop demagoguery. [4 Mar 2002, p. 90]

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Washington can't save a picture that spends so much time worrying about a heart that it loses its head.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

So lacking in shame that it finally seems laughable.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A shamelessly manipulative commercial on behalf of national health insurance.

Village Voice Ed Park

Washington is in default dignified mode here. He capably embodies the hero's transformation from doughy dad to man of action, amid the movie's shameless button-pushing and cheap religious overlay.

New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein

When emotion is called for, Cassavetes drags out every tear-jerking moment beyond the point of tolerability.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

This movie, written in crayon by James Kearns, is too dumb to come up with a way of defeating the system by using its own rules.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Leaves you feeling as if you've been alternately milked and bitch-slapped. Its manipulation is so clumsy and obvious -- and, ultimately, it goes so far astray from its original guiding principles -- that it leaves you feeling dangled and dazed.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Is it possible none of these actors read the script before they signed on? Were New Line executives perhaps too hung up on hobbits to notice how whacked out this movie is?

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

John Q. is as fake as that tear, an exploitative mess trying to pass as social activism.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Every so often a movie transcends stupidity and soars into the empyrean of true idiocy. John Q. is such a movie.