The Final Patient (2005)

Directed by: Jerry Mainardi | 103 minutes | thriller | Actors: Matthew Borish, Guy Boyd, Jason Scott Campbell, Bill Cobbs, Desmond Confoy, Alex Feldman, Andrea Havens, John Benjamin Martin, Lizan Mitchell, Victor Velez, Cheryl Williams

Because humans are one of the few beings aware of their own mortality, quests for sources of eternal youth have always played an important role in our narrative tradition. ‘The Final Patient’ also enters this thematic path, although the script writers Jerry Mainardi and Michael J. Mainardi have given the subject their own and quite special twist.

The story revolves around the elderly doctor Daniel Green, who appears to be a fairly ordinary elderly man who moves with a cane and also takes care of his ailing wife. But looks are deceiving. When a child gets stuck under Green’s tractor, it turns out that the old man is in fact extremely strong and can lift the heavy colossus with playful ease. When graduate, passing medical students Willy and Cameron hear tall tales about the tractor incident in a bar, they become curious. Since Willy is an old friend of Dr. Green’s, the old man decides to invite the two boys to dinner at his house. Green shares his secrets with the pair and explains how despite his respectable age he has apparently superhuman powers. But in the old doctor’s house also dark and dangerous forces lurk that can be deadly for the curious but unwitting visitors.

Based on the cover, you’d expect ‘The Final Patient’ to be yet another uninspired horror film, another one in which hordes of teenagers are slaughtered in the cornfields or a terrifying ghost apparition terrorizes the inhabitants of an old and dilapidated house. But in reality ‘The Final Patient’ is a thoughtful thriller that builds up to the final climax at a pretty slow pace. The film is clearly supported by veteran Bill Cobbs, who portrays a complex and intriguing character with Daniel Green. At first, Green comes across as an uncomplicated, good-natured grandpa with a heart of gold. But behind that facade of outward carelessness lurks a tormented man, as it turns out later. Especially haunting are the scenes in which Green reveals the secret behind his almost supernatural powers to his two guests in an almost unlit room during a nighttime mega storm in which lightning and thunder ravage the night sky.

Despair, madness, melancholy and intense sadness, these are all emotions that Cobbs manages to shape by using almost only his voice and eyes. A fine piece of acting. But unfortunately he is the only actor in this film who manages to reach a high level. The rest of the cast is mediocre at best, but sometimes just way below par. Some actors just seem to have been picked at random from the street. And certainly during the first 45 minutes, when relatively little happens and the film largely relies on dialogue, that is a big problem. Between the lines, ‘The Final Patient’ also criticizes certain members of today’s doctors’ guild who only venture down the paths of medical science to get rich quick. Green talks about givers and takers, while the character Cameron is a clear representative of the latter group. He went to medical school to become a plastic surgeon, purely to earn a lot of money and not to help people.

The build-up to the climax of ‘The Final Patient’ is at times very nice and exciting, but the final denouement is a bit disappointing and doesn’t match the character of the rest of the film at all. Many questions remain unanswered, various loose ends are handled carelessly and certain plot holes undermine the credibility of the story. A shame, because in this way a film that certainly had the necessary potential eventually turns into an average thriller that makes a anything but indelible impression. Too bad for Bill Cobbs, too, whose performance deserved a better script and more capable colleagues. Constantly navigating between good-naturedness and madness, the Hollywood veteran gives away a great acting show.