Brendan Fraser plays John Crowley, an advertising executive who has three kids and a lovely wife, Aileen (Keri Russell). The problem is the two younger Crowley kids, Megan (Meredith Droeger) and Patrick (Diego Velazquez), suffer from a muscular disease called Pompe's Disease. The Crowley crowd tries to live a normal life despite two of their number having a condition that could very well leave them dead by age nine, and to make matters worse, the elder of the two troubled kids has just had her eighth birthday.
When Megan has a particularly close call, John decides to travel across the country to meet a person whose name keeps cropping up in all of his personal research on the topic of Pompe's Disease, Dr. Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford). Dr. Stonehill is a medical researcher who is on the cusp of developing a unique drug that will deliver far more of the necessary enzyme to the young bodies than any other on the market or in development. The problem is, Stonehill's university is severely underfunded and hardly any money is going towards his research.
On a whim, John decides to start a foundation geared towards getting Stonehill the money he needs, and while his network of parents who have kids that suffer from the disease give all they can, it is a far cry from the half-million dollars that Stonehill quoted. Inspired by Crowley's drive to get the money, he makes a striking proposition, a business arrangement where John will handle the business side of things and Stonehill, the research. Together the pair approach venture capitalists and form a small research facility called Pryozime with the promise to the investors to have a drug in trials in a year's time.
Unfortunately, for everyone, the money doesn't last and the investors start wanting results before Stonehill and his team can provide them. In a bold move, they decide to sell the company to a major pharmaceutical company that is working on three other possible cures for Pompe's Disease, but Stonehill's loner nature and extreme interpersonal issues causes a lot of friction, not only with the other research teams, but with Crowley as well. To make matters worse, John begins to feel lost and inept in the research company executive positions and political forces within the company causes even more problems for Fraser's character.
Both Fraser and Ford play characters drastically different than what we normally see. Fraser does a great job of playing the desperate dad who is doing whatever it takes to get a cure to his family. He is extremely believable when he hits rock bottom and feels that even though the company is close to securing a cure, it might be too late for his children. Meanwhile Ford steps away from his standard extroverted, bravado-filled characters and portrays Stonehill as a prideful character who appears introverted at first, but whose eccentric, yet brilliant nature, makes him a force to be reckoned with when he gets mad.
Extraordinary Measures doesn't come with a lot of special features. One is an interview with the real John and Aileen Crowley as they talk about the real story, researching Pompe's Disease and living with kids who have this problem. One of the more heart-felt parts of this short featurette is when the whole family visits the set. The other featurette is cast and crew interviews about the story. Quite frankly, this feels more like an ad for the film as it covers the general plot and idea behind the movie, but doesn't really reveal anything you wouldn't have gotten by watching the film.
While the film has the usual crisp audio and visual effects we've come to expect on a Blu-ray disc, there really isn't any aspect of this film that makes the enhanced resolution (and cost) required. While a good movie, it really isn't worth multiple watchings, and then only if you are a fan of drama in general. In the end, Extraordinary Measures is a rental at best.
