Desperate MeasuresAlthough he enjoyed great critical success with crime dramas and slice-of-life pictures, director
Barbet Schroeder continued dabbling in the thriller genre with this action-oriented film.
Andy Garcia stars as Frank Conner, a widowed San Francisco police officer whose young son Matt (
Joseph Cross) is suffering from leukemia. Without a bone marrow transplant, Matt will die, but Frank isn't a donor. In fact, the only potential match is prison inmate Peter McCabe (
Michael Keaton), a psychotic but charming serial killer. At first, McCabe refused to participate despite Conner's pleas, but eventually, the convict relents and agrees to the procedure. It is all a ruse, however, as McCabe has discovered a clever way to escape the confines of the operating room where Matt's oncologist, Dr. Hawkins (
Marcia Gay Harden) is scheduled to perform the transplant. Faced with the dual nightmare of his son's deteriorating condition and a mass murderer on the loose in a major metropolitan hospital, the frantic Conner finds himself bending and even breaking the law to bring McCabe down and save Matt's life. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
