Comparing John Q And A Letter From Birmingham Jail

Law Breaker

How far would you go to save your child’s life? Would you kill, steal, or hold people hostage until you received what you asked for? In 2002, filmmakers, Nick Cassavetes and Mark Burg released the film John Q that tells a story of a family man who breaks the law to save his son’s life. John Q. Archibald takes illegal matters into his own hands by holding a hospital hostage to grant his son a heart transplant. This film can be compared to Martin Luther King Jr.’s A Letter from Birmingham Jail because King and Archibald had similar motives towards unjust laws. King would agree with John’s actions, but I do not. Parents should go out of their comfort zone to save their child, but it shouldn’t lead to breaking the law. John Quincy Archibald is a middle class, loving family man who’s facing financial problems because of labor cutbacks at his job. John’s nine year old son, Mike, collapses on the ground while playing baseball and John discovers that his son has an enlarged heart, and he will need a heart transplant. John and his wife, Denise, turn to their insurance and find out that the transplant

a heroic figure. They illustrate examples of this by having a supportive crowd outside of the hospital chanting his name, and the hostages that were released only had good descriptions to say about John. They created the movie in a way that everyone will agree with John and his actions. By using a normal middle class family that’s going through a crisis, it relates to most of the working middle class families today. Parents are willing to do any and everything they can for their child(s) and this film illustrates this to reach out to the audience. The health care system is certainly responsible for this, and they’re the reason why Archibald’s’ struggled to get their son a new heart. There is clearly an issue with the healthcare system and the filmmakers uses this film to address the