In "The Good Nurse," Eddie Redmayne plays a very bad nurse named Charlie Cullen, who confessed to killing up to 40 patients while working as a nurse in New Jersey and is suspected of killing potentially hundreds more.
While he admitted to the killings he was less forthcoming about his motives, which dramatically speaking leaves "The Good Nurse" grabbing at straws. Director Tobias Lindholm, working from a screenplay by Oscar nominee Krysty Wilson-Cairns ("1917") based on Charles Graeber's 2013 book, instead turns his attentions toward the bureaucracies that allowed Cullen to operate and fashions the thriller as a lame and wholly unconvincing police procedural. And that's before its star starts vamping for his awards moment.
That would be Eddie Redmayne, an Oscar winner for "The Theory of Everything," who plays Charlie as a sensitive, caring, thoughtful guy, right up until his generosity is framed as something other than altruism. When he's eventually required to go barking mad inside a police interrogation room the scene is an absolute howler, not only because it's totally unbelievable, but because Redmayne is so clearly going for his Awards Clip. It's Big Acting 101, and it doesn't land at all.
