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.
By this point, its inconsistencies have already rendered "The Good Nurse" very all over the place. Jessica Chastain is Amy, an overworked single mother who works at the hospital with Charlie and grows very close to him, very quickly. When patients start dying at the hospital, foul play from Charlie is the last thing she expects. But as the case starts closing in on him, she becomes the lead witness, tasked with getting the evidence that will put him away.
That case is made by a pair of detectives played by Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich, whose police work here is one part taking notes while half watching a "Law & Order" marathon, two parts "Scooby Doo." Asomugha and Emmerich can't ever figure out the right notes to play, and Lindholm doesn't seem to offer any help.
There's no interrogation of Cullen's psyche or what would lead him to carry out his acts, and as the tension is instead shifted toward Amy's cooperation with the cops, the drama flatlines. Not even a good nurse can overcome a bad script.
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'THE GOOD NURSE'
Grade: D+
MPAA rating: R (for language)
Running time: 2:01
How to watch: On Netflix Wednesday
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