Article 99 (1992)

As a Gulf War Veteran who has tolerated enough crap from the Department of Veteran Affairs to last me five life times this movie nails the subject between the ears as it should be addressed. Those civilians who have never had to go through the most insane level of BS known to mankind have not a clue what the Veteran community tolerates as it pertains to acquiring services due the sacrifices we have made.This movie clearly represents the obfuscation, misinformation, lies, denial of services, and the withholding of information that those in charge of the VA tell the practitioners along with other employees to do. Very few times in life are there men and women who see all of the information, see the connections, see the injustice, only to take a step forward to put those in charge on their butt. These rare and rather heroic people stand up against the corruption as those who get the job done. Should you doubt what I am saying visit any VA Medical Center or federal office building where claims are filed in order to speak first hand to those who are in the middle of fighting for necessary services. Furthermore maybe, just maybe you can elaborate on why this movie was released in the shortest time frame only to be rushed through the country as quick as possible. As we certainly do not want to show "Any" government entity in a bad light… May God have mercy on the souls of those who delay, deny, and expect us to die as I along with many others shall have no mercy and give no quarter to such rats.

Once upon a time in the Reagan administration, a cog in the cabinet discovered to his amazement that with all the US veterans floating out there from the abysmal failure in Vietnam, the sheer cost of treating them as they aged would skyrocket.Thus it was decided to abolish their problems. See in Bushist America we ignore any problem that we don't want to face.The movie brings up a valid point. The VA has failed in its mission. And the situation from the time the movie was released has worsened. With 80,000 in treatment from the latest war the issues raised by this movie are ones that need to be addressed.Regrettably by reading some hijinx from M * A * S * H into the civil service bureaucracy of the VA and creating a feel good ending the scriptwriters muted the very point they'd like to have made. I gave this a ******* 3 ******** for all its comic but unfunny unrealism. The movie compares with John Q for the unrealistic expectations foisted upon the viewer.It's betterto Tell it like it is than to pretend a social problem is getting better!

I loved that movie when it came out, and again when I had a chance to see it recently. I feel it is one of the best portrayals, today more than ever, of how frustrating our bureaucracy is becoming, putting dollars before people, even more-so in every public sector, where they should be leaders for the private sector and not the other way around. The solution presented in this picture doesn't seem very plausible, but one never knows. It also portrays well how conscientious underdogs/dedicated professionals feel in such working environments, and how many manage to make things right is spite of the illogical rules they get to bypass, all this while still keeping their sanity - no burnouts for them! Watch it, it's worth it, even more for anyone who is a Keefer Sutherland fan.

Article 99 is a biting backlash against the absurd beauractic red tape preventing Veteran's hospital from dispensing much needed care to mounting numbers of patients. Faced with the endless parade of lost files and missing certification statements, hiding patients, and stealing medicine, these noble doctors do whatever it takes, defying a stubborn administrator and risking the vitality of their medical careers. Good performances by all, particularly among Keifer Sutherland as the new doctor who is steadily learning the difficulties and trade-offs of working in a system so inexplicably and ineffectively bound by the system, experiencing this in his exchanges with an elderly patient named Sam (Eli Wallach). It is disgusting to see Sam, heralded a war hero and honored with a Silver Star, to be labeled a Gomer (patients who hang around the hospital on some unknown floor waiting to be approved for their respective treatments), only to die because the adminstrator restricted the funding so much that they couldn't perform the tests on him, leaving him to slowly die and the young doctor to scramble desperately to save his life, not being able to do much to help him, his hands tied by the system. Keith David is excellent, too, here in another war-themed movie with John McGinnis, having previously co-starred together in 'Platoon.' David is "Luther," a disabled vet who acts as the source of reality, I suppose, of how the hospital operates, but is also a 'guardian angel' type as he protects the doctors who just want to take care of their damn patients. Luther, as evident in the finale, stages his own sort of war, one against the government when the hospital goes into lockdown, and it is not one he is willing to give up. Once fighting for his government, now his fighting against them. David also adds some good humor to the story, a bit of comic relief to this gloomy drama. Eli Wallach provides some of the same.Ray Liotta, Kathy Baker, and John Mahoney likewise give good performances and it is the cast that really make this movie as good it is, propelled by an important story.