FilmJudge - Pathology

REVIEW

Pathology
2008
Certificate: 18 | Runtime: 95 | Director: Marc Schoelermann
Starring: Milo Ventimiglia, Michael Weston, Lauren Lee Smith

Dr Ted Grey (Ventimiglia) graduated top of his class from Harvard Medical School, and begins working in a prestigious pathology department in a city hospital. The other interns, lead by Dr Jake Gallo (Weston), are suspicious and hostile to Ted at first, and take a decidedly cavalier approach to their work. However, what Ted soon discovers is that his colleagues kill 'useless' people for fun, and do so in ways which challenge the skills of the rest of the group to find the causes of death.

If you wanted to carry out an intricate dissection of Pathology, you would discover such flaws as bad acting, poor characterisation, predictable plotting, and things of that ilk. However, the film has one overriding weakness that infects just about every fibre of its being; Pathology is about as subtle as taking a bus to the testicles.

Within 30 seconds of meeting Dr Gallo, it's obvious that the guy is a complete nutcase. Weston's constant grinning and facial twitching aside, the character is such a psycho that it's as clear as day he's involved in something sinister. And yet, very few people around him seem to notice. Where are the subtle hints that he is up to something? Where is Ted's slow realisation that there's a darker side to this character? Answer - these things are nowhere to be seen. Honestly, the character's villainy wouldn't be any less apparent if he were presented wearing a monocle and stroking a white cat.

It's the same story for just about every other character in the murderous clique. Juliette (Smith), Griffin (Johnny Whitworth), and Catherine (Mei Melancon) dissect bodies in front of the rest of their colleagues with an almost erotic sense of enjoyment. 20 doctors in the room and none of them can spot that these people have some serious, and obvious, psychological issues? As characters they are all thinly drawn, one-note and, aside from their rampant craziness, completely forgettable. There's also some scenery-chewing going on from most of the cast.

Leaving aside all these things however, the film had a slim chance of being passable if Ted was a likeable, interesting and even moderately compelling character. Unfortunately, he's a damp squib; a dull, emotionless bore, and this problem isn't helped by Ventimiglia's wooden and shallow performance. Also, Ted's acceptance of the game played by his fellow doctors is ridiculously prompt. The group inevitably begins to turn on Ted, but this would only be tense, exciting or disturbing if we gave two figs about him in the first place.

There's also no getting around the fact that the film is rather pleased with itself. It tries to touch on philosophical questions about power and the true value of a human life, but all these things are underdeveloped and just get lost in a gigantic blender of gore. In fact, the film's overindulgence of occasionally gruesome images actually serves to sterilise their impact after a while. I've never been one to find blood and guts particularly repellent, but I recognise that when used correctly gore can be massively effective at stirring emotions and stomachs. But Pathology seems to think that showing autopsy after autopsy is somehow going to make its audience feel more uncomfortable, whereas the familiarity actually has the opposite effect.

It's a tough task to find anything positive to say about Pathology. It's a film in which understatement is a foreign concept, in which crass gore is used to supplant proper chills, and in which the characters are as interesting as soiled bandages.

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