TheRetroCritic

Richard Pryor stars in Critical Condition , a comedy from 1987 in which he plays Eddie, a man arrested following a run-in with some dodgy characters who attempts to fake an insanity plea in order to stay out of prison. As a storm hits the hospital he'd been transferred to, the power goes out and he has to pretend to be a doctor in order to escape. Unfortunately, he soon finds he can't go anywhere while the storm is going on and is forced to really try being a doctor until it clears up, which obviously proves hit-and-miss, to say the least. Like with Brewster's Millions , Pryor is provided with a funny, simple concept and he makes the most of it. As both Eddie and his alter-ego Dr Kevin Slattery, Pryor does a great job in his usual off-beat way, throwing funny lines effortlessly and stumbling wide-eyed through difficult situations. The film is not a laugh riot throughout but the characters and scenarios are random and likable enough to keep you entertained. There'

Olivia de Havilland loses it and we sit and watch as she attempts to regain some shred of her sanity and hopefully leave her confinement to be reunited with her husband. The reasons behind her nervous breakdown are revealed little by little and although the feel of the film is, at times, very Hitchcockian, the way the subject-matter is handled makes Spellbound look like a 5 year-old child's perception of psychoanalysis rather than a legitimate take on it. De Havilland's performance in this is one of the most complex, unpredictable and powerful I've seen in a long time and, again, makes Gregory Peck's performance in Spellbound look even poorer than it already is in comparison. She earned a well deserved Oscar nomination and so did the film. The Snake Pit is very dark and doesn't sugar-coat much, with some scenes actually quite hard to watch and pretty daring for 1948. As larger than life as some of the characters may be, this is far more subtle and honest than,