Sidney Lumet, as witness his Network, could never see much point in being humorous unless he could be lecturing you and hectoring you in the bargain. (Not too surprisingly, his climax here gives up all pretense of humor and settles down to strict lecture.) The topic this time out is the health-care system, and it should not be hard to round up viewers eager to enter into the happy-hunting spirit of sniping anew at such well-peppered targets as doctors, lawyers, and insurance companies ("Jeez, I wish they'd teach more about litigation in medical school"). Albert Brooks, in C.G. Jung makeup as the addlebrained alcoholic administrator of a state-of-the-art Intensive Care Unit, manages to make his lines sound like his own, and to pile up more laughs than James Spader, Kyra Sedgwick, Helen Mirren, Edward Herrmann, Colm Feore, Philip Bosco, Wallace Shawn (the Devil), and Anne Bancroft (an angel) put together. And Lumet, humanist in an icebox, oversees the chilly institutional visuals which create an environment more conducive to learning than to laughter. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd
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