The Good Doctor (2012)

Will Turner is one creepy mofo.

Martin Blake is an ambitious, good-looking, and smart doctor that just wants to be respected. Problem is, he’s got a bit of a dark side to him that starts to come out once he tries keeping an attractive patient Diane (Riley Keough) in longer than she should be.

Whenever you’re sick, hurt, or close to dying, you always count on the doctor to save your life and if he can’t, do the best to his ability to do so. This is what’s expected of a doctor no matter where they are and whatever circumstance they’re under. But what happens when that doctor happens to be one sick piece of shit that does the exact opposite of what’s expected? Well, that’s where Mr. Turner walks in and make sure you never go to a hospital ever again. And you thought healthcare was bad!

It seems like this film could easily be classified as a thriller, or even a type of horror flick, but deep down inside, underneath all of the weirdness to it, there’s a dark comedy that comes out very surprisingly. One of the main reasons why this film seems a bit like a dark comedy is because all of the bad and terrible shit Blake can, and sometimes does do, he gets congratulated by it from all of his clueless co-workers and a lot of the scenes come off more ironic than scary. To be honest, despite all of the dark source material, I actually found myself chuckling a bit at points but I’m not going to get too ahead of myself because even as darkly humorous as this can be, it’s heart is a dark nail-biter, and it does pretty well with that element, too.

Perhaps the most interesting and tense aspect of this whole flick is that there is always a sense that all of this terribly evil shit that Blake is doing, will soon get himself caught. You feel that a lot throughout this film and it could get pretty suspenseful at times, as soon as this character starts to act more and more shady about his on-goings. It’s a nice piece of suspense that works but suddenly something happens half-way through the film and then it’s just sort of lost.

Without giving too much away, the story gets side-tracked with Michael Pena’s character who starts to bribe Blake over something and even though that could have been considered a nice touch for this story to go on and be more tense, it sort of just feels like a bit of drag. It’s almost like the writer/director Lance Daly ran out of things to do with his story, so he just added another one in there and see what could happen with it and even though that story in and of itself creates some tension and suspense, it still does not hit that mark to where it felt necessary and reasonable, especially when you have a story that starts off so dark as this. At least we get a lovable and fun Pena to watch. That’s always a treat no matter what movie you’re watching.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect behind this whole flick is having Orlando Bloom play a very rare, dramatic role as Martin Blake. It’s been awhile since the last time I saw Bloom in a film at all and I think with good reason. The guy has never really been a stand-out actor and just always seemed to be in the background for Johnny Depp when he wanted to do his Keith Richards impersonation, so he could look pretty and kiss the prettier Keira Knightley at the end of the day. But, I think with this role as Blake, he may change some perceptions on him because he’s actually pretty good here. I think what makes Bloom stand-out so well in this film is that the guy is very, very subtle in his own creepy way. We never really get a huge scene where the guy has secretly had some dude locked up in his basement for the past 5 years, torturing him, and doing dirty things to him. No, instead, we get a somewhat weird guy that doesn’t really do the right thing throughout the whole film but yet, you still watch him the entire time. It’s a nice performance from Bloom considering this guy shows some range and depth into a character we couldn’t care less for, but it’s also a character I would have liked to see more about.

The problem with the treatment that they give Blake here is that we never really get an essence as to why this guy is, the way he is. Why does this dude want to illegally keep this girl under his watchful eye? Why is he sitting in his room every night just staring at the wall? Why does he just gaze at the beach for days on end for no reason? Why is that never explained? Why do I care so much considering the character is being played by freakin’ Orlando Bloom? Honestly, I feel like this film could have benefited from more of a compelling character to spice things up and really get us going, but I think Bloom makes this character a lot better just by doing his thing. Whatever that thing may be, I’m still waiting to see but I think it’s so far, so good.

Consensus: With an exceptional performance from Orlando Bloom and a great deal of suspense and dark humor, The Good Doctor does it’s job at getting us to feel uneasy, but doesn’t go the full-mile and seems a bit stretched out beyond it’s limits by the last act or so.

6.5/10=Rental!!