Damn, I do love me some Al Pacino, but his selection of film roles these days seems rather symptomatic of, well, senility. Well, let me rephrase that… the fellow seems to be performing a circular meditation upon morality, which could potentially result in some ace acting performances, yet Pacino keeps settling for half-assed scripts with lines like, “You’re my pahtner. You’re my role mahdel.”
Now, this Academy Award winning actor is filming Dr. Jack Kevorkian biopic, You Don’t Know Jack, which would certainly tank at the box office, but, perhaps tellingly, shall be aired only as an HBO film featuring a few not-so-surprising co-stars:
Loosely based on Neal Nicol and Harry Wylie’s book “Between the Dying and the Dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s Life and the Battle to Legalize Euthanasia,” the HBO film follows Kevorkian’s (Pacino) rise as he builds his infamous Mercy Machine and sets out to perform assisted suicides while waging an epic legal battles defending a patient’s right to die.
[John] Goodman will play Nicol, a friend and co-worker of Kevorkian since 1961 and a steadfast supporter of the right to die. Nicol’s medical training as a corpsman and laboratory technician enabled him to assist Kevorkian on many occasions, while his laboratory supply company often provided materials for Kevorkian’s efforts.
[Susan] Sarandon will play Janet Good, an activist with the Hemlock Society who becomes one of Jack’s staunchest supporters, working side by side with him to make humane suicide available to the terminally ill and suffering. After she is herself diagnosed with terminal cancer, she avails herself of Kevorkian’s services, choosing her own time to die, surrounded by her friends and loved ones.
Certainly, this won’t be a comedic endeavor but a rather depressing tale that chronicles the 130 Kevorkian-assisted suicides. In fact, the act of watching this biopic may, in fact, be a form of euthanasia. And the cycle continues…
