Review: 'The Good Nurse' sedates what might have been a good true crime thriller

Netflix, 2022.

"The Good Nurse" is based on a true story, about a series of mysterious patient deaths that were all linked back to one particular person.

The story is actually a frightening and intriguing one. But as given to us in "The Good Nurse," this is a clumsy, poorly-written (and at times, poorly-acted) mess of a so-called "thriller."

Grade: C

The always great Jessica Chastain is limited here by the hokey script and limitations of her character. She plays the good nurse herself, Amy Loughren, who is struggling to make ends meet as a single mother, and who is quietly battling some health issues of her own. She meets Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) a nurse who bounces around from quite a few hospitals, and they form a friendship. Charlie even offers to sneak Amy some much-needed meds for her situation, showing that he is far from a rule-following practitioner.

But soon after Charlie shows up at Amy's hospital, some of the patients in their care begin to die, unexpectedly. An internal investigation is launched, led by a fiery-eyed lawyer representing the best interests of the hospital (Kim Dickens), and then two bumbling detectives are assigned to the case externally as well (Noah Emmerich and Malik Yoba). They aren't getting much support and it seems like the hospital is covering their tracks and not releasing all of the information, but they eventually find Amy and task her with trying to get a confession from Charlie...suspected after it is found out that the same sort of deaths were happening at his previous places of employment as well.

Much of the dialogue is stunted and strained. The movie itself is shot in desaturated greys and greens. The characters, namely the two detectives are laughable, as they follow the trail of breadcrumbs and often glance incredulously at one another. Eddie Redmayne is good when he is constrained, but a late scene where he is let-loose may sew up a Razzie Award for him this year.

The premise is an interesting one, but "The Good Nurse" fails in its execution.

Grade: C

Genre: Drama, Crime, Biography.
Run Time: 2 hours 1 minute.
Rated R.

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne, Kim Dickens, Noah Emmerich, Malik Yoba.

Directed by Tobias Lindholm ("A War," "A Hijacking").

"The Good Nurse" is in limited theatrical release on Friday, October 21st, 2022 and available to stream on Netflix on Friday, October 28th, 2022.