1. I notice that Orlando Bloom was one of the producers of this film. Note to Orlando: don't quit your day job. In support of that recommendation, please be aware that the film cost a measly $6 million to make, and sold only a little over $5,000 in tickets at the box office. I'm not making that up. It was only in theaters for a whopping 7 days.

2. Oops...I thought Orlando was handsome. Apparently it depends on his haircut.

3. The first half hour of the film drags along at a very boring pace. Yes, I know, in a suspense film (even one that takes place in a hospital) you have to build toward a climax. But my recent kidney surgery was more exciting than the first half of this film.

4. Orlando Bloom can act, and he does rather well here as a boring young hospital doctor who pervertedly decides to keep a patient close to him by finagling her medicines...until she dies. The good news is, this is where the film finally begins to get a tad bit interesting. An orderly (played well -- but slightly creepily -- by Michael Pena) blackmails our doctor for a steady supply of drugs. So what is the GOOD DOCTOR to do...but murder him through poison.

5. No one in this cast really stands out. Bloom is pretty good, as is Pena. Taraji Henson, as a nurse, show promise. But this film feels like the actors are just muddling through. I really can't recommend it.

I had not seen the star of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy or Pirates of the Caribbean, and he would not be seen in a big role until The Three Musketeers, and of course The Hobbit, I knew this independent film was probably straight to DVD and probably terrible, but I gave it a chance. Basically Dr. Martin E. Blake (Orlando Bloom) is British and has transferred to a Southern California hospital, but being arrogant and egocentric he alienates himself from the nurses, he does not gain endearment from his first patients, and his superiors are not all that happy with him. All he longs for is respect for his peers and one day the power of authority over others, and he feels this when eighteen year old Diane Nixon (Riley Keough),who is suffering a kidney infection, comes in for medical treatment, she and her family see his good medical work as heroic. Her health slowly starts to improve, but Martin longs to remain a hero and consist respect from fellow staff, so selfishly he finds a way to slow down Diane's recovery, changing her medication and botching other treatment, and he maintains the illusion that he is doing everything he can to help her. He eventually lets this botching go too far and accidentally kills Diane, her infection went beyond his control, he is not suspected of any crime by the hospital staff, but it is questionable what some of her family think. But then Martin has another problem when orderly Jimmy (Million Dollar Baby's Michael Peña) reads through Diane's diary, she wrote her sexual fantasies about Martin, of course the doctor-patient personal relationship implication would damage his career, so he blackmails the doctor to give him narcotics. As long as he gets the drugs Jimmy says he will never give back the diary to Martin, so he fills some of the pills he gives him with potassium cyanide which kills Jimmy, and he steals the diary back. Jimmy's death is treated as suspicious and an criminal investigation is started, Detective Krauss (J.K. Simmons) questions him on anything he may know, he is visibly nervous and panicky, so he goes to the bathroom and attempts to flush the diary, but the toilet clogs. With the toilet flooded he climbs out the window and runs to the seaside, he imagines drowning himself in the ocean, but he runs back and after the detective leaves he throws the diary in the garbage, he is not seen to be suspicious, and some time later Martin assures, while carrying out his duties, that he is getting better all the time. Also starring The KTaraji P. Henson as Nurse Theresa, Rob Morrow as Dr. Waylans, Troy Garity as Dan, Molly Price as Mrs. Nixon, Wade Williams as Mr. Nixon, Sorel Carradine as Valerie and Gary Carlos Cervantes as Mr. Sanchez. It is certainly good to see a good looking actor like Bloom playing against type and being the villain, but the story is rather slow, the dark moments aren't paced all that well, and the script is full of cliché and predictability, a silly and hardly worth the effort thriller film. Adequate!

It's a movie for adults. There is no secret demonic conspiracy or medical cover-up or madman trying to spread a virus that will kill every man taller than he is.

Instead we have an ordinary internist at a big hospital, the properly taciturn Orland Bloom, who becomes so attracted to a young woman who is his patient that he goes to extraordinary lengths to keep her in the hospital. His plan to keep her in the hospital succeeds, but her winding up in the morgue is extempore.

Well, Bloom is a good doctor with an otherwise unimpeachable reputation and her death affects him deeply. Ridden with guilt, he's then approached by a vulgar orderly who has found the deceased's diary outlining much of what's been going on. The impertinent orderly, Michael Peña, demands a constant supply of dope from the doctor who, when he discovers that the supply must be unending, slips the arrogant underling a dose of KCN. That's potassium cyanide. I happen to remember it because late one night I released some of the gas when I worked in a tool and die shop, just out of curiosity. It didn't smell like almonds, but like peaches. The next day the boss carried on about the equipment somehow having gotten rustier overnight.

I couldn't make out what other shenanigans the doc was up to. (By this time, his term of reference has been reduced in social value from "the good doctor" to "doctor" to just plain "doc".) Aside from the dope, I did notice him snatch a vial or two of something from the supply room, and he fiddled around the labels on some Petri plates -- a very naughty thing to do, as I recall. I don't claim to know much about medicine but I know what I like.

At any rate, it was a relief to watch a movie in which no one's head gets twisted off, there is no high-speed pursuit ending in a cataclysm, and no half-caste zombies. Orlando Bloom is excellent in the role of the young, earnest, enthralled physician. He has all the expressiveness of a tax auditor. He takes his work and his ethics seriously. If only he hadn't fallen for that pretty blond, Riley Keough, with the woeful voice. She's not even phenomenally beautiful, but rather her appeal lies in the fact that she projects the trust, vulnerability, and innocence of a child. Rob Morrow is memorable in a small part.

Lance Daly's direction is straightforward and allows us to see what's going on. The camera does not wobble, neither does it swish pan. There are, though, probably too many huge close ups for a movie made in this classic style. It is, after all, not a TV movie but a feature film designed to be seen in theaters, and who needs J. K. Simmons' head to be sixteen feet tall?

Even the title is nicely apt: "the good doctor," ironic and yet descriptive. Bloom really IS a good doctor, except that he's responsible for one accidental death and one deliberate murder. Doctors always get away with murder. A good friend, who is a doctor, was always late for appointments because he was disorganized, but when he rushed into the examining room, the patiently waiting patient would apologize to HIM because he knew how busy doctors were. The rest of us aren't so lucky.