Bracco, as she proved in GoodFellas , has a diamond-bright sensuality and wit. In Medicine Man , she would seem to be perfectly cast as Dr. Rae Crane, a feisty, uptight biochemist who journeys into the Amazon rain forest to check up on Dr.
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I think that I shall never see a movie lovely as a tree, and "Medicine Man," set among the trees of the Amazon rain forest, confirms that suspicion. A medical whatdunit with overtones of ecological orthodoxy and metaphorical fancy, the movie isn't bad so much as unfinished. It's as if John McTiernan, the action director now trying a grown-up project, is working from notes rather than a script. This is his "Apocalypse Now," and he still hasn't found an ending. Like "Apocalypse," this one is about an arduous upriver journey through a merciless jungle; the difference is in the destination, which is a heart of lightness. That is, a cure for "the plague of the 20th century -- cancer.
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The " Outlander " star brings his character into the most dangerous situation yet: the world of online dating. Watch the video. A French anthropologist specializing in nomadic groups moves to Los Angeles with his wife, and starts following a group of sinister street punks who seem to live and move around in a black van. But they aren't what they seem. When an escort girl is found dead in the offices of a Japanese company in Los Angeles, detectives Web Smith and John Connor act as liaison between the company's executives and the investigating cop Tom Graham. An expatriate British publisher unexpectedly finds himself working for British intelligence to investigate people in Russia. A San Francisco civilian police detective is forced to work on a series of murders with his former enemy commanding officer while dating his daughter. Agent investigates the disappearance of a legendary Army Ranger Drill Sergeant and several of his cadets during a training exercise gone severely awry.
F ew movies can manage to make Sean Connery look stupid. Highlander came close, but he came out of that one with some semblance of dignity. Combine Connery's charisma with an exotic setting like the Amazon rain forest, throw in a "hard-headed female scientist" Lorraine Bracco and -- why not? From Connery's silly Steven Seagal-esque ponytail to the ridiculous Club Med-meets-Muzak soundtrack available on Varese Sarabande CDs and cassettes , Medicine Man is startlingly dull and ludicrous to the point of self-parody. Part of the problem lies in the fact that the film works on a shaky premise.
