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14 Hours (2005) (TV)

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14 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
Somewhat believable if you are from anywhere but Houston, 3 April 2005

Author: RyanS32 from Houston, TX

This movie starts off on the wrong foot and never really gets it going. The first scene shows a Life Flight helicopter landing and just outside the window you can distinctly see mountains in the background. For those of you who might not ever have been to Houston there is no elevation change. The city sits just above sea level and a 5 ft. incline is considered a big hill. To go along with that scenery, any shots outside of the hospital immediately tell the viewer that they are not in Houston. The trees are all missing leaves or are pine trees, neither of which Houston has very much of. Even the hospital itself, on the outside, is very unbelievable. Memorial Hermann Hospital is one of the top hospitals in the United States and sits smack dab in the middle of the Medical District just miles from downtown Houston, yet every outside shot of the hospital makes it appear that the hospital is out in the suburbs or even the countryside.

It is obvious that whoever was in charge of the actual tropical storm part of the movie skimped out because the numerous shots of radar are all wrong. The first radar image in the movie is that of Hurrican Hugo hitting South Carolina. We later see Kris Kristofferson leaving his job and one of his assistants tells him that Alison is moving back south across Houston yet the radar image he shows has Alison clearly moving north off of the Gulf of Mexico into Houston...probably the initial landfall of Alison.

As for the acting, it isn't all that bad. JoBeth Williams, Kris Kristofferson and Rick Schroder all do a decent job considering that this is a straight-to-TV movie. The plot of the story is decent and the fact that it is based on a true story makes it a bit more entertaining. My one problem with the acting is the portrayal of Houstonians with big thick Southern accents...the actors all sound like they are from Birmingham, Alabama and not Houston, Texas.

The movie gets its point across and to the general audience it does exactly what it is meant to: entertain. If you are looking for a factual account of what happened to the city of Houston in June of 2001 then you will be disappointed. One thing to keep in mind before viewing this movie is that it is based solely on the evacuation of Memorial Hermann Hospital and not on Tropical Storm Alison and the impact on Houston metro itself. If you are looking for a factual account of Tropical Storm Alison's impact on Houston metro might I suggest watching The Weather Channel's Storm Stories for Tropical Storm Alison.

*1/2 out of *****

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
another dog in the long-line of TNT's attempts at original drama, 4 April 2005
Author: Colin from Tucson

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Like another commenter, I too noticed the unmistakable appearance of mountains in the background of the first shot, and the fact that the "Staff Entrance" to Memorial Hermann looked like British Columbia. Plus, a lot of the disaster shots were just stock footage, even though there was plenty of flood footage that they could have used, maybe even some with the Houston skyline, although that might make it seem too much like Houston.

I was in Houston in 2001, going to college and delivering pizzas and had to make a couple of deliveries to the medical center that day. Specifically, there was Texas Children's, where all of the elevators were shut down except for one, and I ended having to go to the 12th floor on the stairs. The beginning of the end for that job, but a fun memory. Nevertheless, I was drawn to the movie. Things like the big blue pipes from the pumps extracting water and the shots of cars submerged on 610 brought back memories of the whole thing, but the movie just couldn't do it. Cliché characters, terrible writing and an almost need to make the story uninteresting made me sad that I stayed up late to watch this.

Kris Kristofferson seemed either drunk or senile for much of the movie. Rick Schroeder overdid the obnoxious role, and even though the characters love him towards the end, you can't help but still hate him. One thing that surprised me was that the pregnant nurse didn't give birth, even though in one scene, you half expected her to and you get the feeling that the writers wanted her to.

The one thing that finally made me laugh out loud and turn it off soon after, was the scene where the man cleaning out his flood-ravaged home, after hearing on the radio that the hospital and all of its innocent patients were in trouble, yells "Hey, Memorial Hermann! That's right down the street! Let's go!" Everyone drops their wet carpet padding and follow in a line down the street, leaving their homes open to looters.

Sure, this is a made-for-TV movie, and there's almost nothing to expect from it. The little inaccuracies though were just a little too much considering that this happened almost four years ago, and it's not as if this movie had to be rushed into production.

Even if you're from Houston, and experienced TS Alison, you won't enjoy this movie because there's just so little of what really happened in the flood.

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Fact can be far more exciting than Hollywood drama, 6 August 2007

Author: Jerry Monroy from United States

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I work at Memorial Hermann Hospital (TMC) and was also working at Texas Children's Hospital, Women's Hospital, and West Houston, during Allison. First the shots of the hospital are sadly suburban. The Texas Medical Center has a daytime population density similar to Wall Street!! There are huge skyscraper professional buildings and hospitals. TCH was the largest Children's Hospital before it doubled in size, TWICE! Methodist, with its 1500 beds is one of the largest hospital in world. The Texas Medical Center skyline is bigger than that of Memphis. Yet, the best pics Hollywood could muster are that of some dinky hospital in the middle of nowhere (besides the real pic of the hospital taken decades ago). Also, they combined several real-life characters and portrayed them all in one (super-nurse). I actually know the Medical Technologist(s) working in the blood bank. Two where actually working at the time but the movie shows only one pregnant MT. There was a pregnant MT, and another MT that took the precious patient antibody rolodex (research "alloantibodies" for more info). I will not mention their names (privacy). There was no nurse in the real life lab scene. Hollywood combined these two techs (most likely to save time and money). In the movie, military helicopters (true) had to transfer the our babies (NICU and PICU) to UTMB all the way to Galveston! Why you may ask, when we have the largest children's hospital just down the street? Because Texas Children's Hospital refused to take them. You read right, they REFUSED!!! Being employed by them, I was ashamed. Needless-to-say, I'm no longer affiliated with that facility. Any other comments would be repetitive to the ones already posted by the people that who actually live here, or lived through the experience.

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This is the way bad made-for-TV movies are made, 20 June 2007

Author: Petr_B from Prague, Czech Republic

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

In the European TV industry, movies like this one are called "stickers". TV stations buy them and air them because when they wanted to buy broadcast rights to, let's say, Titanic, some not-really-blockbusters were a part of the deal.

14 Hours is a story of a hospital, its employees and patients who have to face the worst flood slash storm ever. Unfortunately almost from every scene or shot one can tell that is was a low-budget film.

Newborn babies are very obviously not real, there is no background action and probably the worst thing is the doctor-acting. The actors are not believable in their roles: their lines, when spoken, sound way too memorized, as if this was a read-out camera test.

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It's okay, 20 March 2007

Author: chicachinita24 from Philippines

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Actually, I didn't watch the WHOLE movie. I watched some parts, changed the channel, changed back and watched it again, changed the channel once more but when I changed back and saw the part where the flood had cut off the back-up generators of the hospital,from there, I kept watching. Even if I somewhat knew that in the end of the whole movie, everyone would sort of "live happily ever after", something about the film kept me glued to the screen. SPOILERS! One scene that made me smile was when the "National Guard" came in their helicopter to save those adorable little babies! I don't know why but that scene really struck me! Maybe because I had this image of these tough guys handling fragile little beings and then there was that background music and I actually giggled! I do not live in Houston, nor do I live anywhere near it. I actually had no idea that a storm badly hit that area. It wasn't a really bad movie. There are lessons to learn. It showed that indeed, when disaster strikes, you'll see that a lot of people actually care and want to make a difference. What would be great is if even without these disasters, you'll lend a hand, you'll still care about others. That really matters!

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Close, but no cigar, 8 April 2005
Author: gsjnal from United States

As a hospital Fire Marshal, I had a hard time staying awake during the first playing of the film. So, I popped a tape into the VCR to catch the encore presentation. Having just watched the entire film, I found the beginning to be a snooze. It was not until the actual evacuation began that my interest was finally grabbed.

My applause go out to the staff of the hospital who were involved in the actual incident. To the writers of the movie my only comment is "Close, but no cigar" when trying to portray a hospital disaster. My prescription for the movie is to add an additional dose of reality to counteract some of the drama.

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i saw the movie and i remember the flood and evacuation but I'd like to know more of the facts???, 4 April 2005
Author: robert-brenner from United States

I heard that Herman Hospital has been studied and examined in order to establish a protocol to follow in the event of another emergency hospital evacuation is needed. I know the storm, flood, and evacuation really did happen. I believe that only one patient died and probably would've died regardless. What I'd like to know is if the nurse and surgeon did any or even some of the things depicted in the film. The most obvious thing to me is that it seems like the National Guard should've been called earlier. I kept thinking why aren't the National Guard's Evacuation helicopters being utilized???? Hopefully the governor and Prez acted earlier than revealed in the film.

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Not bad but could have been better, 4 April 2005

Author: bailey9971 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I work at Hermann, and so I think that the whole script for this movie was pretty weak, but I do understand that 2 hours is not enough time to tell the whole story. The attitude of the doctor was pretty on target as well as the way that the nurses all lean on each other. The details were right on for the most part. The names and locations that they refer to, the name badges, the Cafe' Hermann sign in the back ground in the lunch room, all that made it interesting to watch. The flooding of the underground areas was kind of a let down, I know a few of the guys that work on facilities at this and other hospitals, and the viewers missed out on some really good stories of people doing everything they could to save the hospitals.

The hospital that they used for the exterior shots was a far cry from the beauty of this building, and it is a shame that they could not film the exteriors here. They did show a wide shot of the hospital and a close up of the original entrance, so that was really cool to see on national TV. Its too bad that in a couple of years you won't be able to see it at all from the street. They are building the new heart center on the corner where the parking lot for valet is now.

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