With a non story...unless you find, as I did not, the account of a serial killer let loose in a medical facility a compelling tale...and rather dull characters (actually, except for George C Scott, largely caricatures) this movie soon devolves into Paddy Chayevsky from his pulpit (or soapbox, if you're not an acolyte of this messagey scribe) inveighing, through the bearded mouth of his main character, against both the establishment (i.e. incompetent rich surgeons, clueless hospital staff, arrogant interns etc) and the anti establishment (i.e. hippies, black power types, spiritualists). After about an hour of this I was thoroughly bored. That I stuck with it as long as I did was due to the general acting excellence of Scott who manages to do what director Arthur Hiller could not, namely surmount Paddy Speak. Five years later the Great Pontificator would meet a director made of sterner stuff in Sidney Lumet and thus write a much better film. Give it a C plus.
Review of The Hospital
