Gross Anatomy Reviews

Doctors and lawyers: the symbolic twins of American upward mobility. PAPER CHASE meet GROSS ANATOMY. You're made for each other. In fact, change torts to tourniquets and lawyers' tweeds to doctors' smocks and you are each other, identical twins to the undemystified core. Joe Slovak (Matthew Modine) is the working-class exemplar here, wisecracking his way through his first year at med school. Tough anatomy prof Rachel Woodruff (Christine Lahti) doesn't take kindly to his cavalier attitude, though fellow student Laurie Rohrbach (Daphne Zuniga) finds his brashness intriguing. Problems with Laurie and anger at the school's treatment of his roommate (forced to leave after cheating on a test) cause Joe to have second thoughts about continuing his studies. The story is worked out through a series of operatic twists and turns, making it seem a miracle doctors get through med school at all. For all the ranting about excellence and being true to your potential, the watchword here is mediocrity. GROSS ANATOMY is slick, anonymous, and bland in the Disney Touchstone manner. Everything in it seems borrowed from somewhere else, and THE PAPER CHASE hangs over plot and characters like the domineering Professor Kingsfield himself. For this kind of cribbing they throw you out of med school.