The Good Doctor - Deadly Treatment

Movie: Young Doctor Martin Blake (Orlando Bloom) has just begun his residency training at a new hospital. As hard as he tries to gain recognition from his colleagues, his supervising physician Dr. Waylans (Rob Morrow), and even the nursing staff, Martin's introverted, somewhat snobbish manner keeps him an outsider who must fight hard to gain respect. When he successfully treats a kidney infection in 18-year-old Diane (Riley Keough), he seems to get the recognition he was hoping for, not only from her family, but from Waylans as well. But this threatens to dwindle as Diane begins to get better. Martin therefore makes a drastic decision in order not to lose Diane and with her his new found self-esteem. But this decision has fatal consequences not only for the girl...

The Good Doctor is a very quietly staged thriller that provides a certain level of suspense with its supercool imagery. Filmmaker Lance Daly, however, relies less on shock effects or obvious thrills and more on deliberate restraint, which is also reflected in Orlando Bloom's performance. Bloom is often accused of having only one facial expression anyway. But anyone who has seen the Lord of the Rings star in films like Elizabethtown and New York, I love you or in his delightfully self-deprecating guest appearance in the series Extras knows that Bloom can definitely do more than some (professional or self-appointed) critics would like to give him credit for. Granted, he only uses very restrained facial expressions here as well. But this is also extremely important for the character and his development towards the end of the story.

Much more problematic is that Martin's actual motivation for his actions is never really revealed. He wants to be a good doctor, but he wants it for the wrong reasons. He's only concerned with his own self-esteem, at least at first. Whether he really starts to develop sincere feelings for Diane and whether his emotional outbursts are about a guilty conscience towards her and her family or simply fear for his career is not made clear enough. It's true that not everything has to be explained in a movie. But especially the somewhat rushed ending, which doesn't really want to conform to the otherwise very carried staging, doesn't seem as effective as Daly obviously intended due to the lack of somewhat more detailed background information.

The cool atmosphere and the very good actors, which include J.K. Simmons (The Closer) or Rob Morrow (Alaska of all places, Numbers) in smaller roles, console over some of the weaknesses in the staging. Still, in the end the feeling remains that The Good Doctor is more of a (good) TV production and not a film designed for the cinema. This doesn't necessarily make the thriller worse, but it justifies that it doesn't celebrate its premiere in our cinemas, but only in the home cinema. And there the whole thing is absolutely recommendable for lovers of thriller-dramas of the calmer kind! But anyone hoping for hard-hitting psychological suspense and bloody crime entertainment might feel wrongly treated here.

Picture + Sound: The technical quality of the DVD can be described as good throughout. The picture is clean, the overall sharpness is at a decent level, but could have been a little better in terms of detail. The colour scheme is rather reduced, but this suits the chilly atmosphere of the thriller. The sound is rather restrained for long stretches and is dominated by dialogue and the quiet music. That said, the differences between the Dolby Digital 5.1 track and the DTS mix are very slight in favor of DTS. Good!

Extras: As a bonus, the DVD has just under 10 minutes of standard making of and the trailer for the film to offer.

Conclusion: The Good Doctor - Deadly Treatment is a good thriller drama that scores with a tense story and a convincing lead actor. Only the finale, which seems arguably rushed in contrast to the overall rather slow production, dulls the positive overall impression a little. The DVD is technically well done, but the bonus material is not very spectacular. If you like quiet thrillers without action, but with some psycho-drama, you can safely risk a look here

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp