Despite being steeped in timely controversy (do hospitals give preferential treatment to the wealthy?), this latest offering from Sidney Lumet is as bland as hospital fare. James Spader is Werner Ernst, an overworked, undersexed MD with all the rebellious integrity of M*A*S*H's Hawkeye Pierce, but inclined to think with his little brain and not his big one, sort of like, oh, ER's Doug Ross. When the daughter (a tackily dressed Kyra Sedgwick) of an elderly patient seduces him and threatens blackmail, Werner must think fast. She wants her brain-dead father's life support terminated so she can inherit big bucks; Werner may lose his career if he doesn't pull the plug. His mentor, the single-malt-Scotch-quaffing Dr. Butts (a hilarious Albert Brooks), wants the vegetable kept alive as long as he keeps paying; the Head Nurse/Angel of Mercy (Helen Mirren) has her own methods for discharging terminal patients.

The impressive cast notwithstanding (it includes Anne Bancroft, Philip Bosco, and Basquiat's Jeffrey Wright), Critical Care disappoints. The screenplay sags into melodrama, with righteous monologues on healing, and poorly realized gimmicks that are inscrutable and unfunny (picture Wallace Shawn as the Devil, who, predictably, eats takeout from Arby's). Although not as torturous as watching, say, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, this film is still far less entertaining than a dose of Demerol. At the Nickelodeon and the West Newton and in the suburbs.