Doc Hollywood

No surprises. No twisted plots. No complex love triangles. This movie is pure and simple entertainment. Okay, it's hokey and it's trite, and the acting at times is marginally acceptable. But it goes with the terrain, for this is America, this is life, this is real people.

It's a nice movie. See it. Don't expect much, but do expect to enjoy it.

This movie is one of the best I have ever seen. It is a shame it is so hard to buy in shops. Michael J Fox does an excellent job in this movie and it is whilst filming Doc Hollywood when he felt his first tremor in his finger leading to Parkinsons Disease. I recommend this film to anyone who loves romantic comedy's. And it is so underrated!

Michael J Fox plays Doctor Benjamin Stone, a plastic surgeon in the big city. He leaves his job for a higher-paid offer in Beverly Hills, so he heads there, for an interview. He wants to avoid all the traffic, and takes a shortcut. All goes well until he gets lost in a little village. He isn't watching the road and narrowly misses a cow, then crashes into a gate, in the village of Grady, His beloved car is smashed up.

The farmer whom the gate belonged to, is very angry because he had built the gate himself and money couldn't pay for the damage. Benjamin is sentenced to community service for 32 hours and is stuck in the village. He has to do his doctors job there, without been paid for it, and has to cope with a variety of illnesses, including a woman complaining that her vision was blurred, when all she had to do was clean her glasses!

Life is very different in Grady as Benjamin Stone soon finds out the differences from city life. He falls in love with the ambulance driver, Lou, and tries to impress her, as he starts to fall in love with her. Lou is very quirky, she is a vegetarian and against hunting all animals, Ben attempts to impress her by not eating meat. All the villagers are fascinated to hear that women in city had plastic surgery done on purpose!

Benjamin had sent his car to be fixed in order to get to his job offer in time. He was given a pig, for his work as a doctor which he trades, to get his car up and running again. The mechanic takes the pig to the butchers ready to be killed, it is very funny how Ben runs to save the pig before it is on a plate. He does this because he knows about Lou's feelings towards animals.

The locals at Grady get attached to the Doctor and offer him a permanent job in Grady. He has a very interesting time in Grady including, dinner with the Mayer, and Lou's very weird hobby, urinating in the woods to scare away the deer from the hunters, Ben reluctantly joins in!

Ben's beloved car is finally fixed, but will he leave the town for the big city, big job, and big salary, or will he drop it all to stay with the girl he loves?

When future film critics decide to analyze the career of Michael J. Fox, they will likely say his talents were best suited to television, with an acknowledgement that he did star in the BACK TO THE FUTURE series. This will be a shame, as Fox has been an ingratiating, very enjoyable actor to watch, in most of his films, and DOC HOLLYWOOD is one of his best roles.

As breezy, fast-talking Washington, D.C. surgeon Dr. Ben Stone, who dreams of making big money doing plastic surgery in Hollywood, but finds his true calling as a general practitioner in a small southern hamlet, Fox is so 'right' that you can't imagine any other actor in the role. After a minor traffic accident enroute to California forces him to do 'public service' in fictional Grady, South Carolina, taking on much of the workload of a crusty old local physician (the always enjoyable Barnard Hughes), Stone becomes the 'talk' of the town, and rustic but wise Mayor Nick Nicholson (David Ogden Stiers, in one of his most engaging performances), starts 'selling' the joys of country life to the cosmopolitan young doctor. A quilt with 'magical' powers provides a nude vision of the girl he's destined to love, 'Lou' (Julie Warner), who turns out to be working at his office; his hormone-fueled pursuit of her, and her pragmatic 'indifference' to his flirtations make their gradual romance edgy and fun to watch.

In a town full of colorful characters, two 'stars in the making' stand out; Woody Harrelson, as 'Lou's' suitor, Hank Gordon, a country variation of his bartending character from 'Cheers', talks dumb but has a knack for selling, only lacking a place to make big money at it; and Bridget Fonda, as Mayor Nicholson's oversexed but 'out of place' daughter, hopes Stone will take her away to the bright lights of Hollywood. Both stars are terrific in their supporting roles, and show the charisma that would lead them to stardom.

DOC HOLLYWOOD is full of charming vignettes, from Stone vicariously reading the mail for an illiterate farm couple, to being paid for services rendered with a rather large pig, who ultimately becomes his 'pet'. The film abounds in warm comic touches that are guaranteed to bring a smile!

With a very funny cameo by George Hamilton, as the Hollywood plastic surgeon Stone dreams of working with, DOC HOLLYWOOD hits all the right notes for a terrific entertainment. My only complaint about the film is that it was actually filmed in Florida; as a South Carolina resident, I can attest that MANY of our small towns could have doubled quite nicely for Grady...

DOC HOLLYWOOD is a film I'm proud to have in my collection!

I didn't like Doc Hollywood the first time I saw it in 1991 --- then I watched it again a few years ago and was blown away by the writing, acting and all-around sweet nature of the film.

Dr. Ben Stone is leaving DC for a job doing plastic surgery for celebs in LA when he runs into a picket fence in a small Southern town and has to do 3 days of community service at their clinic as penance. His fancy sports car is totaled anyway and he has to get it fixed. Miffed at being waylaid in such a hokey place, he tries to get through the next few days in time for his new job.

He meets a wide cast of characters -- and to their credit, not everyone in a small town is so gosh-friendly. Some are mean, some are troubled, some are nice -- like any other array of people. Ben meets Lou, a single mother who drives the ambulance, as well as Nancy Lee Nicholson, a confused beauty who wants him to take her to LA.

This movie is great because it is about many people deciding for themselves how they want to live -- whether in a big city or in a small town -- and why they value what they do. It is also about an epiphany for Ben Stone and changing of his ways internally.

I have to laugh at all the comments on this board which say this movie's plot or the characters are not "plausible".

I live near the town this movie was shot in, (I was an extra for one day, and a "stand in" for two days on this film. It was neat!) and believe me, the characters are not only believable, you can meet versions of them in small towns all through the south.

There is a big difference between city and deep country life. Maybe people in very urban areas and countries tend to forget that. Quite honestly, I know several people down here in the boonies who make the folk of "Grady" look downright sophisticated.

That criticism shot down, I just have to say it's a really sweet film. It has a lot of atmosphere and some good character development, even in the minor roles. It portrays small, small town America pretty accurately and with a great deal of charm.