Strictly average movie

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Dr. Benjamin Stone (Michael J. Fox) leaves the manic E.R. of Washington Presbyterian Hospital for the moneyed world of Hollywood plastic surgery. He's driving his 1956 Porsche Speedster when he gets lost on a detour. He crashes into a fence while avoiding cows in the road. The fence is owned by the judge and he gets sentenced to 32 hrs of community service at the hospital. He falls for ambulance driver single mom Lou (Julie Warner). Hank Gordon (Woody Harrelson) is her suitor. Mayor Nick Nicholson (David Ogden Stiers) is eager to talk Ben into staying with the elderly Dr. Hogue looking to retire.This one follows the formula and I've never seen anything wrong with that from rom-coms. It relies heavily on the ample charms of Michael J. Fox and there's nothing wrong with that either. Julie Warner makes a memorable introduction. The town is filled with likable quirky folks and a pig. This is a solid fun affair.

Star-vehicle for Michael J. Fox is a curiously flat comedy straight off the assembly-line. While on his way to California to practice plastic surgery on the Hollywood stars, a doctor gets stuck in a backwater town and quickly becomes smitten with the uneducated yokels residing there--hicks deemed lovable by virtue of their unspoiled lives. Another ridiculous attempt to sentimentalize the rural, homespun way of life by pitting it against the dirty and corrupt Big City. Three screenwriters, Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman and Daniel Pyne (working from Laurian Leggett's adaptation of Neil B. Shulman's book "What?...Dead Again?"), deliver us a valentine to Hicktown, USA. Fox, looking bloated and sleepy, struggles valiantly through it; supporting players Woody Harrelson and Frances Sternhagen manage to give the stereotypical humor a little juice.

Once again Hollywood doctors a person's life so they end up wanting to get married and reproduce, rather than being happy as a rich person living near the beach. I know plenty of unmarried people who are happy with their lives, but Hollywood makes them look like they must be miserable selfish sociopaths who just want to chase a dollar and live shallow self serving lives.The only Doc Hollywood obvious from this film is Hollywood itself, where these types of films are plentiful and the audiences who buy them are also plentiful since they want to "feel good" (as they are told what to feel good about).Ironically, these films are made by wealthy producers and directors just wanting to chase a dollar (and many sexual partners in most cases)by telling other people what to do with their lives. "Do what I say and not what I do" (so I can have your money and that of your offspring I told you to have).These producers tell unmarried people they are socially unacceptable if they don't want a husband/ wife and kids- telling their relatives to pressure them into getting all of the above STAT (like the old women in this movie do with MJ fox's character). They also tell you that you need someone else attached to you by marriage to be whole and happy, thus women stuck by abusive men in the past and now.Thanks Doc Hollywood.

I'm one of the biggest Michael J.Fox fans there is, but for some reason I always hated this movie as a kid. Probably because it's a leisurely paced comedy filled with quirky characters. However, having viewed it again recently, the very reasons I may have disliked it in the past, are the reasons why I rate is so highly now.Fox is firing on all cylinders as Dr.Ben Stone,who finds himself stranded in a rural town, and gradually transforms from a money obsessed egotist, to a more down to earth nice guy, who realises the things that really matter in life.Julie Warner gives a believable performance as the attractive ambulance driver Lou,who quickly catches Fox's eye in what could very well be the sexiest entrance in a romantic film.The film is Fox's vehicle and is carried by him, but it's to Warner's credit that the scenes between them are evenly matched and she gives a lot more personality to a role which could have easily just been a one dimensional love interest.The dialogue and chemistry between the two of them never seems forced.Of course, like all of these types of films, it's obvious from the start, that the guy will get the girl in the end, but it makes no difference because unlike many similar movies,the relationship seems natural and, to the film's credit, there are a few non-contrived obstacles before the "happy ever after" moment.All in all, I'm glad I saw the film again recently because I found it to be an highly enjoyable, unpretentious ROM-com (how many ROM-Com's show the two leads urinating all over the forest)that delivers a fine set of quirky characters and humorous situations.