Literary adaptations and serial killer thrillers are two of the most popular genres among modern-day audiences, but putting the two together didn’t quite work out for Desperate Measures a quarter of a century ago.
The feature-length version of author David Klass’s novel had a strong central conceit and a talented cast, but in the end, there was nothing to show for it but unmitigated critical and commercial disaster. On a budget hovering around the $50 million mark, the cat-and-mouse crime story couldn’t even make it to $14 million in ticket sales.
A 19 percent Rotten Tomatoes score rubbed further salt into the wound, while upwards of 10,000 users on the aggregation site have only been able to drive its approval rating up to a middling 37 percent. On the plus side, the forgotten dud was worthy of a remake, with Sanjay Dutt starring in 2000’s Hindi update Jung.
Andy Garcia takes top billing as a widowed cop desperate to secure a bone marrow transplant for his son, only to find out that Michael Keaton’s imprisoned serial killer is a perfect match. Seemingly repenting for his murder spree, the inmate agrees to act as a donor, only to escape from the operating room and make a mad dash for freedom, leaving a trail of destruction behind.
Based on the premise, Desperate Measures should have turned out a great deal better than it did, something iTunes subscribers are no doubt discovering for themselves after FlixPatrol revealed that director Barbet Schroeder’s unloved atrocity has fled the scene of the crime to shack up on the platform’s charts.
