Playing God (1997)

Playing God Film Details

Overview: A disgraced surgeon leaves his former life and reinvents himself as a gunshot doctor in the criminal underworld.

Tagline: Joining this deadly underworld was easy. But getting out…deadly!

Review: ‘Playing God’ would be nothing without three of the best actors around to bring a tired genre piece to new heights and make it intriguing. David Duchovny stars as Eugene Sands, a former surgeon who was disgraced when his attempt to balance pill popping caused him to lose a patient. Instead of trying to save his shattered career, he chose to take the easy road to addiction. As the movie opens, he is trying to buy heroine in a bar when a man is shot in argument. Quick thinking Dr. Sands becomes McGyver and fashions a breathing apparatus out of a coke bottle. His quick thinking saves the man’s life and captures the attention of Claire (Angelina Jolie). She is so impressed that the next thing he knows he is being invited to the home of millionaire Raymond Blossom (Timothy Hutton). Blossom offers the good doctor a job in which he will be paid to take care of some of his friends who run into, let’s just say, some unfortunate gunshot wounds of which hospitals would ask too many questions. The story is, of course, completely stupid and so is Duchovny’s quicksilver surgical methods. But it didn’t bother me because the realm of this kind of hard-boiled story allows it some freedom. It’s helped by Duchovny who is a good looking guy but doesn’t seem to be standing around posing all the time. He isn’t afraid to look foolish, a quality the most actor’s shy away from. Hutton is never a slouch, he goes into even the most tedious screenplay and acts his heart out. Playing the villain is easy when all you have to do is look mean, kill people and issue threats. But Hutton, as Blossom allows us to see what seduced him to his life of crime in the first place. He is an amazing presence in this film because watching him I’m drawn into his character so that I more easily identify with him. Angelina Jolie is a rare case of a gorgeous young woman who doesn’t just stand around behind the actors. There is an intelligent person beneath her looks and her screen presence is as welcome as her looks. She could step into the window dressing in this film and simply be the object of lust but we sense a smart woman who is a sucker for a stray dog like Sands. We know that what we are watching is preposterous but with these three wonderful actors they are able to break away from the confines of the screenplay and absorb us.

Country: United States

Language: English, Russian

Duration: 94 min

Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller

Also known as: Kuoleman koukussa,Playing God,O Jogo de Deus,Изображая Бога,Istent játszva,Izigravajući boga,Izigravajuci boga,Jocul cu viata,Kõikvõimas,Brincando com a Morte,Playing Hero,Jugando con la muerte,Xepernontas ta oria,Ξεπερνώντας τα όρια,Doctor pentru mafie,Зображаючи Бога,В ролята на Бог,Udajac Boga,Tanrıyı oynamak,Jugando con la vida,Le damné,不法執刀