Medicine Man

Deep in the heart of the rainforest, Dr Campbell (Connery) has discovered then lost a cure for cancer, so it's back to the drawing board in his rickety hut. Ignorant of his (near) findings, the university funding the research sends fellow biochemist Dr Crane (Bracco) to pull the plug. Once informed of the situation, she joins with Campbell in an attempt to repeat the formula and to beat the developers threatening the rainforest (which contains the crucial ingredient). Our couple argue and yell, in exchanges lent a humorous edge; national differences and eccentricities are endlessly flaunted (Connery as irascible Scot, Bracco as hard-nosed New Yorker); but the script utterly fails to create engaging sexual tension. A maestro of the action movie, McTiernan effectively captures the horrors of a climactic jungle fire, but at other times, the setting merely provides an exotic backdrop to bolshie posturing and feats of derring-do. If only they'd cast Schwarzenegger.