The Good Doctor

Dr. Martin Blake (Orlando Bloom) is six days into his residency and out to make a good impression. Unfortunately, after an incident involving a patient's missed allergy and antibiotics, Blake seems a bit questionable to his superiors.

In addition, Blake becomes obsessed with a former female patient (Riley Keough). So much so as to go to extremely unethical, even dangerously illegal lengths to get her back in the hospital. We soon see just what THE GOOD DOCTOR is really capable of doing to get what he wants.

Bloom is wonderfully low-key in his sinister role. His character is a malevolent force, so utterly selfish as to be oblivious to just how despicable his actions truly are. He's ruthless in a laid-back way that's far more effective than if he'd played it as some overt madman.

In the end, the damage he causes is for "love" and self-preservation...

The good doctor is a story about what happens if a doctor, at his own discretion and arbitrariness, begins to interfere in the process of treating a patient. An 18-year-old patient with pyelonephritis, an infectious disease of the kidneys, comes to the novice therapist Martin Blake. And what happens is that our doctor begins to feel completely unprofessional feelings for the patient. In order to keep her in the hospital at least a little, he changes drugs and starts a very risky game with an unpredictable result. The famous Orlando Bloom appears here in a rather rare acting role - a maniac and a sociopath. In the supporting roles, it is beautifully set off by Michael Peña and J. K. Simmons. Together with the competent direction of the Irishman Lance Daley, the result was a wonderful psycho-thriller, very, very competently exploiting the fears of the ordinary man in front of modern medicine. Designed for a purely target audience - people who love smart independent films, where you need to speculate a lot yourself and draw your own conclusions based on what you watched. To all that has been said, it remains only to add that the rating of the film is undeservedly underestimated.

Once you read the plot summation or have viewed the trailer you may think they have shown their hand with this but what unfolds is a much larger picture as the viewer is introduced to DR. Martin Blake. He is new at the hospital having just begun his residency there. Lonely, he seems to be an outsider, never having the girl or the attention he wants most. Until he is introduced to a new patient he will be in charge of named Diane. He & the 18 year old Diane seem to quickly forge a bond, a bond that Martin is determined to keep, thus he meddles with her medication & test results, keeping her there with him at the hospital.

Don't let this fool you by any means, this is just the beginning for Martin, his downward spiral has just begun. I must say that Orlando Bloom did a superb job portraying Martin as a fragile loner desperate for more at any cost. Riley Keough, known for her previous role in The Runaways, also did a fine job as Diane. Overall this did a very good job of building suspense & keeping it going through to the end. My only complaint is that I would have liked it to go a bit further with the story, it seemed to wrap up too quickly & an extra fifteen minutes wouldn't have hurt. Still, it exceeded my expectations & recommend to anyone looking for a well acted solidly written suspenseful story. 8/10

Great cast: Michael Pena, Riley Keough and JK Simmons are the most well known faces, but the whole cast are very good.

Highlights: Taraji P. Henson as Nurse Theresa Rob Morrow as Dr. Waylans

Good concept: lessons to learn about risks, ethics and moral.

Bad execution: when you think the plot is going to get hot, nothing happens...

Feels like cast and crew got a feeling that the work wasn't that good...

During a Q &A after the film, a fan in the crowd asked if the ending left the movie open for a Good Doctor 2. "We only do trilogies around here," joked Orlando from the stage, to laughter.

Don't waste your time.

Not the usual doctors as heroes film, this one shows some dark sides. A lonely Brit resident is in his first year at an L A hospital. He's not really sure why he became a doctor other than to gain respect. His boss is a distracted lightweight and a senior doctor called in to consult is a fatuous windbag. A patient gets sick and the senior doctors are baffled, the patient gets worse but because all the normal tests are done it is all shrugged off. Then the relative ease doctors can get involved in the drug trade is depicted. The protagonist seems to get over it all and moves along with his career. Could've used some more tension and humour, although the dinner scene with the family from suburban hell was good for a laff.