Threshold

I wish this film would come out on DVD. Others here have written well about the movie, so I won't add to that. But it's illuminating that 25 years after I first saw it, there are scenes that still stand out vividly in my mind. One of my favorites is when, the night before the surgery while Sutherland is making his final plans, he pauses for a moment in front of the x-ray light box, and spreads his hand out on it. He quietly examines his hand, the hand of a surgeon that will soon cut out a woman's heart and replace it with a machine. Can he really do it? Should he? An amazing moment. Whoever has the rights, please release this on DVD!

I wasn't really looking forward to seeing this film, and only ended up watching it because it stars Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum, two of Hollywood's most talented and inimitable actors.

In the end, though, I glad I did watch it - THRESHOLD turned out to be an engaging and absorbing drama. It's a fictional account of the first ever artificial heart transplant, and feels so realistic that you'd never guess it was made two years before the artificial heart became a reality.

Donald Sutherland's first-rate performance is probably the highlight of the movie - when he's this good, you wonder if there's anyone he couldn't act off the screen. A then unknown Jeff Goldblum holds his own admirably as the idealistic young doctor who invented the artificial heart, and the film features some impressive camerawork, most notably the opening tracking shot.

All in all, it helps if you're a Sutherland fan, but it's not essential; this is one of those movies whose relaxed pace, absorbing atmosphere and strong performances will have you hooked right from the start.

For some reason, this very good movie only has a paltry overall score of 5.9 at this time. It's especially odd since all the reviewers (so far) score the film higher...often quite a bit higher.

"Threshold" is a great name for this movie. After all, it's about someone receiving the first artificial heart and only a year later, a primitive sort of artificial heart was implanted in a human. Because of this, I am not sure the term 'sci-fi' is appropriate. Instead, it's a film about what was about to become...though even to this day, such devices are only experimental.

Dr. Vrain (Donald Sutherland) is one of the foremost heart surgeons in the world. He's an expert at transplants, though he's interested in possibly implanting an artificial heart in the future. So, when he meets a weird biologist (Jeff Goldblum) it appears such an operation might be completed.

This film is not that farfetched and making such procedures seem possible is its great strength. Additionally, while I certainly am no surgeon, the surgeries you see look pretty realistic. However, some might balk at the path the film takes, as very soon after the surgery occurs, the story ends....and my wife hated this. She wanted to know more...though because this is unchartered territory I didn't mind the vague ending.

Overall, some excellent acting and an absorbing story make this worth seeing.

Like most physicians, I tend not to watch medical shows in Movies and on Television; partly because they aren't usually very realistic - the real world seldom has sufficient drama to make good entertainment - and partly because one doesn't normally look for relaxation or entertainment in the same field in which one works. I saw Threshold for the first time recently only because I am a great admirer of Donald Sutherland's considerable talent. In this film, Sutherland is at his best, creating a portrait of a Cardiovascular Surgeon which is so real I could recognize several of the surgeons I know personally. He embodies both their strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps the most notable attribute he gives the fictitious Dr. Vrain is the total commitment and life absorbtion which a heart surgeon must have, even when it weakens his ability in other facits of life. One of the film's advisors was Dr. Denton Cooley, the pioneering Dallas Surgeon; Sutherland must have studied and worked with him extensively to so perfectly capture the personality and persona. The film follows his lead in making nurses, and their daily routines in the hospital unusally true and realistic also. This film is worth seeing just for the strength of Sutherland's portrayal and the realistic view of the medical world alone.

Amazingly to me, this film appeared on cable very often when my child was an infant with congenital heart defects. The makeup giving Mare Winningham the look of oxygen deprivation was very realistic and gives the viewer a picture of the "dusky" skin tone of some heart patients. The restraint of the Vrain/Carol relationship was right on, and the peripheral but agonized part of the parent was poignantly depicted by Carol's father. The film is almost a relief from the typical "dramatized" film about illness. Heart difficulties are inherently dramatic to the lay person (perhaps not to doctors, though) and need no melodramatic treatment. The understatement, the lack of statement all serve the subject well. The cold, orderly world of the (urban, state-of-the-art)hospital that contains so much extraordinary work comes across beautifully in this film. I'm glad others appreciate it.