Doc Hollywood (1991)

Crappy film

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blistering performances.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Michael J. Fox plays a hotshot surgeon on his way to Beverly Hills when he takes a detour that leads to him wrecking his car in a small Southern town. A judge sentences him to community service as the town's doctor. This leads to many fish-out-of-water situations between the easily-frustrated Fox and the local rubes, as well as his becoming enamored with ambulance driver Julie Warner.Nice comedy helped by a likable cast. Arguably Fox's best movie post-Back to the Future sequels. This movie gave us the first and only look at what God gave lovely Julie Warner to work with. Also gave us one-hit wonder Chesney Hawkes' only hit, the appropriately-titled "The One and Only." It's formulaic and predictable but undeniably charming and pleasant.

I'm one of the biggest Michael J.Fox fans there is, but for some reason I always hated this movie as a kid. Probably because it's a leisurely paced comedy filled with quirky characters. However, having viewed it again recently, the very reasons I may have disliked it in the past, are the reasons why I rate is so highly now.Fox is firing on all cylinders as Dr.Ben Stone,who finds himself stranded in a rural town, and gradually transforms from a money obsessed egotist, to a more down to earth nice guy, who realises the things that really matter in life.Julie Warner gives a believable performance as the attractive ambulance driver Lou,who quickly catches Fox's eye in what could very well be the sexiest entrance in a romantic film.The film is Fox's vehicle and is carried by him, but it's to Warner's credit that the scenes between them are evenly matched and she gives a lot more personality to a role which could have easily just been a one dimensional love interest.The dialogue and chemistry between the two of them never seems forced.Of course, like all of these types of films, it's obvious from the start, that the guy will get the girl in the end, but it makes no difference because unlike many similar movies,the relationship seems natural and, to the film's credit, there are a few non-contrived obstacles before the "happy ever after" moment.All in all, I'm glad I saw the film again recently because I found it to be an highly enjoyable, unpretentious ROM-com (how many ROM-Com's show the two leads urinating all over the forest)that delivers a fine set of quirky characters and humorous situations.

Michael J. Fox, Julie Warner, Woody Harrelson, David Ogden Stiers and Bridget Fonda star in this 1991 romantic comedy. A Plastic surgeon falls for a woman in a Southern small-town community. Fox plays Ben Stone, A plastic surgeon on his way to Beverly Hills who gets into a car accident in a southern town, Grady. He's sentenced to perform community service while his car gets fixed and the town is short on doctors. He meets Lou (Warner) who is an ambulance driver and they fall for each other. Soon, Ben makes a difficult choice to stay or leave. Harrelson plays Hank, Lou's fiancée whom she's not in love with. Stiers plays Mayor Nicholson and Fonda plays his daughter, Nancy Lee. This is one of Michael's best and he and Julie have good chemistry. I recommend this great romantic comedy.

In Doc Hollywood young Michael J. Fox having completed his residency looks like he has his future by the short hairs. He's going into plastic surgery, much money to be made there and nobody dies. Usually the only thing that approaches a dearth in fatality like that is dermatology. But a traffic jam on I-95 and a couple of stray cows on the back road he's traveling gets him into a gentle jackpot of an accident. It just happens that he plowed into a freshly put up fence by the local judge Roberts Blossom.For the first offense in the town of Grady, Florida Fox is given community service in the local hospital where crotchety old doctor Barnard Hughes is ready to pack it in. In their own hospitable ways the good citizens of Grady set out to make the man Hughes calls, Doc Hollywood welcome. There's one particular citizen played by Julie Warner who wants to offer the ultimate in hospitality even though her ever present steady boyfriend Woody Harrelson is around.In many ways Doc Hollywood is an updated version of the Paramount classic Welcome Stranger with Bing Crosby, Barry Fitzgerald, and Joan Caulfield. In that one however, the town folks don't take to city boy Bing right away, here they're going out of their way to make Fox welcome as they know that Hughes will not be there forever.One of the really nice things about Doc Hollywood is the impeccable casting of some of the rustic characters you might find in the Florida wilds. Two of the best are Eyde Byrde as Nurse Packer who runs the hospital like a drill sergeant, a kinder, gentler and black version of nurse Ratched. And it took me a while to realize the actor playing the rustic southern mayor was David Ogden Stiers, formerly Charles Emerson Winchester of Hahvard and the 4077 MASH unit. For those who best remember Stiers as Major Winchester, this performance will come as a very pleasant shock.If you saw Welcome Stranger than you have a good idea of how Doc Hollywood turns out. I think it was one of the best films of the previous decade, a pleasant and gentle diversion of entertainment.