BEFORE: I didn't really plan it this way, but I'm happy enough to take advantage of the upcoming holiday on the calendar. Honestly, Labor Day is the easiest holiday to program for, whatever lands on Labor Day weekend probably features some characters who have a JOB of some sort, so whatever that is, I can just say that was part of my plan. So part of my plan is an accidental tribute to doctors and nurses, how about that?
I just finished a grueling week of school orientation, so shout out to teachers and college professors, too. I don't often use the word "grueling" when describing my current job, because it's typically light work with occasional lifting and infrequent emergencies. But getting up early to open up the theater at 7 am, 6 am, that's what was so taxing about this week. THREE morning shifts? I was already on vampire hours, and you want me to work in the morning now? Well, I did it, the freshman class has officially been orientated now, and I didn't get the shift with the ostrich statue, like I did last year, so that's something. Really, I wish I were kidding.
I could really say that the Labor Day tributes began last Sunday, with "Monster Trucks" being about car mechanics, and "Apollo 18" being about astronauts. Hell, "Butterfly Effect 2" was about businessmen in some kind of tech field, so if you're playing along at home, you can count that one too. Whatever, I'm too tired right now to think straight, I came home at 7 pm after a 11-hour shift and took a nap, so there's your Labor, now enough already, it's time for a 4-day weekend.
Kim Dickens carries over from "Land".
THE PLOT: An infamous caregiver is implicated in the deaths of hundreds of hospital patients.
AFTER: This film is based on a book, which was based on a true story, so if this all happened I can't really fault the story here, now, can I? The shocking part is that the killer was able to find so much work at different hospitals around New Jersey and Pennsylvania over a 16-year period, and therefore was able to kill so many people, possibly hundreds. Most of the hospitals who employed him were willing and able to fire him for little technicalities, like minor mistakes on his resume when they hired him, rather than to report him after suspicions he was killing patients, for fear of facing liability themselves from potential lawsuits. Well, then, if nobody turns him in, he's just going to move on to the next hospital in the next town and start killing again, isn't he? Kind of like Andrew Cuomo, now trying to be NYC's mayor after getting removed as NY state's governor.
I'm reading the back-story of Charles Cullen now on Wikipedia - he had a history of being bullied in school, then hazed by crewmates in the Navy. He got a medical discharge from the service in 1984, without reasons being disclosed. After nursing school he started bouncing around hospitals and somewhere in there killed his first patient, possibly an OD to an AIDS patient, who knows, maybe he considered that a mercy killing. After that, three elderly women with an OD of heart medication, so I guess there's a slippery slope there, the first few were justified in his twisted mind and then things just got easier for him, but also harder to justify. Not that any medical murder is justified... Even through to the late 1990's, there was apparently no method of reporting mental health issues during employment checks, also there was a national nursing shortage going on, which explains how he found it so easy to get more jobs. Meanwhile his marriage broke down, his wife saw him abusing their dogs and feared for their daughter's safety, so that led to divorce, he stopped paying child support at some point, and made frequent suicide attempts.
He tended to favor cardiac wards and burn units, but it wasn't until he was made to resign from St. Luke's hospital in Bethlehem, PA that seven of his former co-workers came forward and told the district attorney that they suspected he'd been killing patients. But investigators never followed up or looked into his past, so the case was dropped for lack of evidence. He moved on to the critical care unit of the Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, NJ, where he was caught accessing the records of patients he wasn't assigned to, also the computerized drug cabinets showed he was requesting medications that hadn't been prescribed, however he cancelled the orders right after getting the meds, making it look like the drugs had not been dispensed. The drugs he used included digoxin, insulin and epinephrine, and is it just a coincidence that the first letters of those drugs spells "DIE"?
As part of a plea deal, Cullen promised to cooperate with authorities if they did not seek the death penalty, so as a result he's now serving 18 consecutive life sentences, and is not eligible for parole until the year 2,403. I just really hope he doesn't start killing again at the age of 443. The good news is that 37 states adopted new laws that encourage employers to give more honest reviews of the performance of medical professionals and provide legal protection for hospitals that report medical errors resulting in patient deaths. This should prevent this sort of thing from happening again. But I feel like there have been a lot of movies or TV movies about these "angel of death" incidents, the Wiki page for Cullen lists at least 10 other similar serial killers, including Donald Harvey and Harold Shipman.
This movie is told from the POV of Amy Loughren, a single mother and nurse who was Cullen's co-worker at Parkfield Memorial (Somerset in real-life though) and Cullen was secretly helping her with her heart condition, as her health insurance coverage didn't kick in until she worked for the hospital for four months. They were friends until she started to suspect he was killing patients, at which point she preferred to not let Cullen interact with her daughters. Seems reasonable enough, however she still needed to interact with him while the medical investigators got the information they needed to prove he was killing patients, so there were some tense moments when Cullen was taking care of her health, like where did he draw the line between tending to patients' care and then deciding to end their lives? At this point, however, the film just kind became a very standard by-the-numbers crime film, with Amy wearing a wire to try to get a confession from him while eating at a diner and such.
So yeah, there are still some improvements to be made to the system, however the current administration seems intent on killing Medicaid and other insurance plans, instead of strengthening them to provide better coverage for the majority of Americans. Something to think about as we head into the Labor Day weekend.
Directed by Tobias Lindholm
Also starring Jessica Chastain (last seen in "Armageddon Time"), Eddie Redmayne (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore"), Nnamdi Asomugha (last seen in "Fire with Fire"), Noah Emmerich (last seen in "Cellular"), Malik Yoba (last seen in "Criminal"), Maria Dizzia (last seen in "Late Night"), Joseph Fugelo, Judith Delgado (last seen in "The Crew"), Jesus-Papoleto Melendez, Myra Lucretia Taylor (last seen in "Ezra"), Marcia Jean Kurtz (also last seen in "Armageddon Time"), Devyn McDowell (last seen in "Jerry and Marge Go Large"), Alix West Lefler, Ajay Naidu (last seen in "The Kindergarten Teacher"), Jennean Farmer, Navya La Shay, David Lavine (last seen in "Taking Woodstock"), Bruce MacVittie (last seen in "He Said, She Said"), Brooke Stacy Mills (last seen in "21 Bridges"), Charlotte Cohn-Williams, Shaun O'Hagan (last seen in "The Kitchen"), Maria Farrow, Moe Irvin, Gabe Fazio (last seen in "Maestro"), Anjelica Bosboom, Rebecca Watson (last seen in "The Normal Heart"), Denise Pillott, Dartel McRae, Christine Healy, Alex Bartner, Jennifer Regan, Beth Dixon (last seen in "Infinitely Polar Bear"), Brian Sayers, Steve Antonucci (last seen in "13"), Evan Bass, Andrew James Bleidner, Chris Henry Coffey (last seen in "The International"), Victor Cruz (last seen in "Side Effects").
RATING: 5 out of 10 saline IV bags
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