Medicine Man (1992)

Strong and Moving!

hyped garbage

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

We loved this movie when it came out, have seen it many times over the years, and re-watched it again yesterday over 22 years later. It still holds up as a really good film. Sean brings all his wit, charm, and pragmatism honed over his career, while Lorraine has her NY attitude and the right moxie for the role she is playing. While Sean can correctly portray any job, Lorraine's acting was really spot on to convey both the academic and cultural differences of her role. The actual scenes among the trees and canopies were some of the best photography work in a jungle, predating and helping build interest in the huge fad of zip lines that have since flourished. The story itself is about discovery and redemption, differences in cultures, and how they interact. The soundtrack was really unique for its time, easily identified for the South American influences, and is still one of the best to listen to independent of the movie.

Sean Connery and Lorraine Bracco lift this film out of the muck and mire to salvage it from drowning in it's own rain forest.Bracco is an award-winning biochemist turned field researcher who visits reclusive scientist Sean Connery to decide if his work warrants continued funding. The appeal of the stars is what saves an otherwise mundane film (honorable mention to the cinematography).The biggest problem here is a clumsy script which includes Bracco's terribly drawn character, plus director John McTiernan's strangely edited final product. He appears to have been smoking some really far out rain forest weed.Ultimately a good movie, well produced, with handsome Sean and beautiful Lorraine to get the audience through the film's rough edges.

this often missed film is a simply a classic in the Connery library of greats.touching upon the destruction of the Amazonian and their way of life, the rainforest's and their secrets, it is a magical tour in to a way of life long long forgotten by so called civilised man...that in this chaos of the rainforest a cure for the modern killer cancer is alive and kicking....and could be lost...for the scenery, the superb dialogue i would recommend that if it comes on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon matinée get the kids sat down, get some popcorn and enjoy a modern classic....i wonder if they real versions of Bronx and Campbell are out there...if they are then let us hope they can save what is left of an undiscovered country and still give us "civilised" people the cure for modern plague...

Okay, there's this weird scientist, Sean Connery, who's hidden himself away in the tropical rainforest of South America and has been incommunicado for years. A "foundation" sends down a youngish, award-winning scientist, played by Lorraine Bracco, to monitor his behavior, find out what's up, and decide whether or not to cut off his funding. Lots of barbed exchanges here between the old curmudgeon and the independent new woman. Some comedy too as he slips her a psychedelic that cures headaches. As it develops, Connery, with Bracco's help, finds the source of a cure for lymphoma in the top terrace of the rainforest. Alas, before he can harvest enough of the stuff to explore the possibility of its being synthesized, some big industrial operation plows a road through the forest and destroys the trees in which the stuff grows. Bittersweet ending. Humankind is hoist by its own petard by what some ecologists call a "progress trap." As compensation the old fox and the young feminist become friends. It's a bad trade.Between 1960 and 1990 one fifth of the world's rainforest was lost. In Brazil, where this film is supposedly set, the Amazon rainforest between 1991 (when the film was shot) and the year 2000 has lost between 415 and 587 square kilometers, an area about twice the size of Portugal. The tragedy is not that the forest is gone. Who cares about wood? It's the consequences, many of them falling into the category of "unknown unknowns" that counts. WOULD a biochemist of Sean Connery's persistence and quirkiness have found a way of combating lymphoma (or anything else)? We're not going to find out now. Among the "known known" consequences, the deforestation has eliminated entire species of plants and animals at an alarming rate, including one primate. (Humans are primates too.) The little message behind the story is, of course, fashionable and politically correct, which for some people makes it wrong. Lorraine Bracco, with her bulky figure and oddly handsome features, seems a likable woman. You can tell because in all of her performances she seems to be playing herself. She can be loud and stubborn but one never senses genuine contempt behind her shouting. I wouldn't mind having an argument with her. It might be amusing. Sean Connery plays a role that must by now be familiar to him, almost shopworn, and he does his schtick well. There appears to be a lot of half-naked Guaranis running around, acting as translators and comic relief, but this is really a two-person picture.At one point Bracco is tripping on this native stuff and having a hell of a good time. She babbles on about marketing it for adults, putting sugar in it, and calling it by some pronounceable name. I wish that she'd have accomplished that because unless we recognize a progress trap when we see one coming, we may need that psychedelic elixir.