Nurse Betty

I saw your TV movie. It sucked! Hasselhoff blew you off the screen!

A review by Mike Shea Movie Rating: ( * * * * · ) DVD Rating: ( * * * * · )

The day I quote Chris Rock on Liquid Theater is a day you may want to switch to . I would probably refer to this movie as "Delightful" if I wasn't guaranteed to have my testicles fall off right afterwards. Instead, being a young American male who is quite attached to his testicles, I must refer to it as "fly" or "phat" or "sic". Just reading the back of the box is enough to get most open minded individuals to retch, but the movie succeeded by following the one cardinal rule. It didn't treat me like an idiot.

Nurse Betty has a couple of stories happening at the same time, and both sound cliche' and dry on paper. What makes it work is a special attention paid to the characters, their dialog and the overall story. The plot dances right on the verge of cheese, but never crosses the line. Just when the amnesia plotline starts to get out of hand, it's no longer a problem. Right when one storyline begins to tire, it switches to the other, fresh and entertaining.

Morgan Freeman does a wonderful job as well, adding a lot of life right up to the end of the somewhat one dimensional role the movie script gives him. God help me for saying it, I even didn't mind Chris Rock's role that much.

The DVD for Nurse Betty shows that having good specs doesn't mean it's good quality. I loved the movie, but I can't say it is a repeat review for me, I can't recommend buying it. It includes a pretty grainy but 16x9 enhanced 2.35 to 1 picture. I can't explain why the picture wasn't so hot, but it showed low color depth and visible grain, something not expected of recent movies on DVD. The sound was Dolby Digital 5.1 but the material didn't do much for the surround system. The DVD includes two commentaries including one with director and actors and one with director and crew (Your a grip! Go grip something!). Even with a low quality picture and ho-hum sound, I was so engrossed in the picture that only on the large landscape shots did I even notice.

Nurse Betty had a formula to fail but shown that with the right script and acting, even a dumb story can turn into something great. The characters are all interesting and the plot, though it gets close, never becomes something that makes you feel like cattle. It is a great movie that just about anyone will enjoy.