Unthinkable

There’s something strange about Chris Williams (Christopher Cousins). Day after day, he lays silently in his hospital bed and firmly refuses to receive the heart transplant that will save his life. Medical resident, Jones Berg (George Loomis), who has spent months on a hospice rotation and, consequently, has seen his fair share of death, doesn’t get it. How could someone who has so much to live for value his existence so little that he will spurn his one opportunity for a renewed life?

Jones is so intrigued that he (rather irresponsibly for a medical student, in my opinion) accepts a position as a live-in caretaker for Chris’s wife, Alana (Natalija Nogulich), who Chris believes is in some sort of danger. You see, Chris is the former ambassador to Syria and ended up in the hospital as a result of a political act of violence. In his post-traumatic state, Chris now believes that those who harmed him are after his wife.

“…Chris now believes that those who harmed him are after his wife.”

In exchange for Jones accepting the job, Chris will relent and pass the psychological exam required for approval of the heart transplant. Jones is ecstatic, but his brother and pediatrician, Miles (Nick Airus), thinks Jones is simply getting too involved with his patient and, like the rest of Jones’ hospital colleagues, believes that Jones needs to learn to let go. But Jones is a committed medical student, dedicated to making the sick well again. Unfortunately, his ideals could cost him his life.

Co-directed by first-timers Elias Talbot and George Loomis, who also wrote the movie, Unthinkable tries to be two films in one. There’s the human drama about a solitary medical student who is the only one who can get through to a dying patient who has given up on life. Then there’s the thriller concerning a dying patient’s strange behavior awaiting a heart transplant and his peculiar relationship with a solitary medical student. Both movies would have made for fine feature films. Blend the two into one, however, and the results are a little muddy.