Bad Medicine (1985)

Touches You

Awesome Movie

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

You'd have to be a fan of farces to like this. It has some novel ideas, such as illegally obtaining a fresh cadaver that has to be transported from the city morgue to the school, while rigor mortis is beginning to set in. Alan Arkin has a secondary, not a starring, role. He brings more to the part than the writer gave him. Steve Guttenberg is surprisingly good as the son of a doctor who can't get into an American medical school, or even a first or second grade foreign one. Curtis Armstrong, in particular, is terrific in his medical student role. Over all, however, this is strictly a B movie. Julie Haggerty is terrible as the glamorous student with whom the school director (Arkin) is enamored. There is nothing alluring about her looks, and her approach to comedy acting is out of sync with the rest of the cast's.

Steve Guttenberg, the comedic actor who hammed it up with such goofball roles in films like "Police Academy", "Short Circuit" and "Three Men And A Baby" has the lead in one of his few non-series films. Whew. It's a very good thing that a film this bad wasn't reduced to making sequels. One is bad enough.

This typical 80's comedy "Bad Medicine"stars Steve Guttenberg as Jeff Marx,a young guy who does'nt want to follow his family tradition,but when cold-hearted cynic Dr.Madera(played brilliantly by Alan Arkin)uses a"saving the peasants"field trip as a publicity stunt,he soon changes his mind.Set in a spanish medical school,he meets new friend such as Jeff Gladstone(played by Curtis Armstrong,infamous as"Booger"in"Revenge Of The Nerds"),a hickish drug addict,Carlos(played by Robert Romanus,whose decent,but was better in"Fast Times At Ridgemont High"),Cookie(played by Julie Kavner,before her Marge Simpson voice fame),and Liz(played by Julie Hagerty,whose cute as a button as the dead-pan love interest of Guttenberg's).The movie is full of incoherent humor with mexican stereotypes and medical stuff.It does get gross after a while(notably,Guttenberg's flesh wound from being shot by an unsatisfied patient),but this comedy is very good.Guttenberg delivers the same lines and witt he's done in other films like the"Police Academy"series,"Short Circuit","Three Men And A Baby"and"Cocoon".Alan Arkin's performance is also great,this film should of been a major box-office hit.I give Bad Medicine a 8 of 10.

I first saw this movie when I 10 years old. I came across it again last year, after finishing my second year of medical school. Its quite hard to find, and I hope they release it in DVD(which I doubt cause they never even released it in LD). My country was even mentioned in the film. They said that there's a med school in the Philippines that's accepts any one who applies. I've seen Gross Anatomy, Vital Signs, PAtch Adams, and the Interns. But this one is my favorite. This is Steve Guttenberg best movie but it is Curtis Amstrong (From Revenge of the Nerds) who steals the show. This is a must-see for medical students.