Medicine Man

Directed by John McTiernan, Medicine Man follows Lorraine Bracco’s Rae Crane as she travels into the Amazonian rainforest to track down a reclusive scientist named Robert Campbell (Sean Connery). Filmmaker McTiernan, working from Tom Schulman and Sally Robinson’s screenplay, delivers a mostly sluggish and uninvolving endeavor that’s rarely, if ever, as enthralling as one might’ve anticipated, and there’s little doubt that the arms-length atmosphere, which is compounded by an excessively deliberate (and hopelessly meandering) pace, paves the way for a uninvolving midsection that contains little in the way of forward momentum – with this feeling perpetuated by a hit-and-miss narrative that’s just egregiously episodic in its execution. (This is especially problematic in terms of certain overtly pointless digressions, including (and especially) Rae’s high-as-a-kite experiences on a natural drug.) It’s clear, then, that Medicine Man‘s relatively tolerable vibe is due mostly to McTiernan’s typically solid visuals and a commanding performance by star Connery, although all the positive attributes in the world ultimately can’t save a picture that builds towards an underwhelming and palpably anticlimactic final stretch – which does, in the end, cement the movie’s place as a fairly disappointing misfire from a distressingly erratic filmmaker.

** out of ****