Extraordinary Measures (PG) ** (From Bournemouth Echo)

Extraordinary Measures (PG) **

11:05am Friday 26th February 2010 in

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EXTRAORDINARY Measures is one of those well-intentioned real-life battles against adversity that would surely have been consigned to the small screen were it not for a starry, A-list cast, including an executive producer’s role for Harrison Ford.

Pacing is pedestrian – Tom Vaughan’s film feels considerably longer than 106 minutes – and Robert Nelson Jacob’s script, based on the book The Cure by Geeta Anand, lacks a rousing resolution to threaten a few tears from the more easily pleased sections of the audience.

John Crowley (Brendan Fraser) is a rising star in corporate America with a beautiful wife Aileen (Keri Russell) and three children: John Jr (Sam Hall), eight-year-old Megan (Meredith Droeger) and six-year-old Patrick (Diego Velazquez).

The two youngest are born with the rare and degenerative Pompe Disease, which weakens muscles and causes the body to shut down gradually.

John’s high-powered and demanding job keeps him from his loved ones, but the money he brings in is vital to meet the spiralling medical costs of his brood.

When the stress of his personal and professional life finally becomes too great, John is forced to walk out on his job to chase the impossible dream of a cure for the disease by teaming up with unconventional scientist Dr Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford).

The medic has a daring theory, but needs half-a-million dollars to fund his research, and then the backing of a bio-tech company to manufacture the treatment.

However, all research takes time and that is the one thing the Crowleys do not have.

Extraordinary Measures ticks all of the boxes, opening with the joy of Megan’s eighth birthday celebrations, then follows the girl as the disease slowly takes hold of her body and brings her to the brink of death.

Fraser and Russell alternate between angry and teary-eyed as they ponder the best course of action, knowing that they hold their children’s lives in their trembling hands: “Do we accept our fate and wait for the worst to happen, or do we fight it?”

Ford is suitably gruff, rebelling against the money men who want to make a small fortune off his years of meticulous research.

No doubt parents will be deeply moved by the plight of the family, but the emphasis in the title is firmly on the Ordinary.

• See it at the Empire