Forget the hustle and bustle of ER or Chicago Hope. None of the doctors in Sidney Lumet’s Critical Care will be voted “Sexiest Man Alive” by People Magazine, and none of the patients suffer from drug overdoses or bloody wounds in need of immediate attention. Unlike its television counterparts, this hospital doesn’t look like the kitchen of an overworked catering service. Instead, the intensive care unit is eerily quiet and bathed in harsh white light, like the command center of a space ship.

In Critical Care, we only get to meet two patients, both of whom are bedridden and terminally ill. In Bed Two, a patient suffering from Good Pasture’s syndrome teeters on the brink of death after two unsuccessful kidney transplants. Still relatively fresh out of med school, young Dr. Ernst (James Spader) watches Bed Five, where a comatose old man exists in a persistent vegetative state. As you might expect, not much happens in this particular section of the hospital. However, dealing with patients who survive only as long as they are hooked to a machine raises moral issues that form the core of the film.

A lot depends on the fate of the patient in Bed Five. His two daughters (from separate marriages) have vastly different opinions on the course of action to take regarding their father. Always seen carrying a Bible clasped to her heart, Connie (Margo Martindale) is convinced that her father is still alive and that his shaking is his way of trying to communicate with the outside world. Felicia (Kyra Sedgwick), on the other hand, wants to put her father out of his misery, sure that his life has been stretched farther than he would have wanted.

Caught in the middle of the dispute is Dr. Ernst. At the beginning of the film, Ernst is little more than a skirt-chaser. He is relieved that his countless years as a nerd have finally paid off. Attracting women is much easier with the title “Doctor” as part of his name. The shaky Felicia seems like an easy target, and he never suspects that their evening together would be videotaped and used to blackmail him.

A little detective work uncovers the two half-sisters’ real motivations: depending on when their extremely rich father dies, one of them will get his entire inheritance and the other will get nothing. When Connie and Felicia go to court, the hospital is suddenly pulled into the middle of the fracas, putting Dr. Ernst in a very uncomfortable ethical position.

Critical Care sizzles with medical/technical/legal material that could easily be a hybrid mix of ideas from popular novelists Robin Cook, Michael Crichton and John Grisham. Many movies suffer from a screenplay that provides too little, a problem Critical Care definitely doesn’t have to worry about. UT alum Steven Schwartz’s script actually overloads the film. In adapting Richard Dooling’s novel for the screen, Schwartz combined a wide variety of different styles and genres. The end result is a confusing blend that defies categorization.

At its heart, the film seems to be a comedy. Sometimes caricature proves to be the best way to approach an uncomfortable issue, but Schwartz’s use of humor is somewhat unsettling when applied to topics like euthanasia. The comedy ranges from bitter satire to knee-slapping vaudeville routines, all punctuated by moments of dead seriousness.

Albert Brooks delivers a hilarious performance as Ernst’s mentor, the alcoholic Dr. Butz. Scenes with Brooks will probably send audiences into uncontrollable fits of laughter, but the gag is out of sync with the rest of the movie. As a result of his alcoholism, Butz’s memory is fading on everything except for the maxim he lives by: make sure the patient has insurance. Dr. Butz raises an interesting point on the misuse of insurance funds, posing yet another ethical problem for Dr. Ernst. However, by framing the issue in farce, Schwartz appears not to be taking himself seriously.

While Brooks’s character is absolutely outrageous, Helen Mirren delivers a touching performance as Stella, the head nurse. She is faced with an important moral decision when the man in Bed Two asks her to help him die. A survivor of breast cancer, Stella is the only character who really seems to recognize the patients as humans. Her part is extremely powerful and shows an understanding we might hope for when issues such as euthanasia strike close to home.

Sedgwick’s portrayal of Felicia adds yet another twist to the film. She is the ’90s Barbie, a manipulative female who uses sex as her weapon. Her character is too conniving to be real, almost like a bimbo upgraded from a Melrose Place plotline.

Two unexpected characters representing good and evil complicate things further. Sure that death is his only salvation, the patient in Bed Two is faced with decisions about where he’ll choose to spend the afterlife. As Satan’s little helper, the Furnaceman, Wallace Shawn is perfectly devious, and Anne Bancroft gives an angelic performance as a nun. Both characters come to give advice to Bed Two. Unfortunately, their parts were filmed in such a way that they could have been omitted from the film if necessary. The scenes made it to the final release, but they are obviously optional, making the film look even more like a collage of mixed elements.

The disjointed feel of Critical Care is entirely intentional. Schwartz and Lumet both expected the audience to be jolted by the mixture of elements and the unusual cutting between scenes. Still, knowing that our discomfort in watching the film was carefully planned doesn’t increase my admiration for it. People are going to react strongly to euthanasia no matter what their opinion. Thankfully, the film never takes a clear stand on the issue (though we could infer certain things from the behavior of the characters). It allows us to draw our own conclusions.

Though Critical Care does not rank among Lumet’s best films, it follows in the tradition of his other work by ripping open an important issue and examining it from the inside-out. Lumet turned television on its head in Network, he exposed New York City police corruption in Serpico and he perfected the courtroom drama with The Verdict. Now he takes his shot at the health care system with Critical Care. Long after the film itself has faded into the recesses of your memory, you will still feel its effects on a variety of important issues.