'Hippocrates: Diary of a French Doctor': Hospital satire

At several points during the French hospital dramedy Hippocrates: Diary of a French Doctor, the film's characters - patients and doctors alike - watch an episode of House, M.D. on the hospital's many TV screens.

(Oh, come on! You don't use an MRI to diagnose ethanol poisoning. All you need is a simple blood test, one of the French docs protests to the screen.)

The references to the smart TV show are telling: Director Thomas Lilti's film is patched together with a peculiar mix of feel-good Hollywood sentiment and good old Gallic workplace activism.

A satire with a heart of gold but the teeth of a goldfish, Hippocrates: Diary of a French Doctor stars Vincent Lacoste (Diary of a Chambermaid) as Benjamin, a boyish doc who has just started as an intern at a Paris hospital that numbers his dad (Jacques Gamblin) among its honchos.

But this hospital is a far cry from the space-age wonder featured on House, M.D. The paint is peeling, the machinery is broken down, the supplies are always running short, and the staff has been radically reduced after years of budget cuts.

A very unevenly paced first act shows Benjamin acclimating to his new position in life. Around the other interns, he's the life of the party; his family connection at the hospital is envied rather than scorned. Benjamin is less self-assured on his rounds. His sunny disposition and charm can't save him from the darker aspects of his work: He's assigned to the ward where other departments tend to deposit their terminally patients.

He is helped through the drudgery by Abdel Rezzak (Reda Kateb), an experienced Algerian doctor who has to redo his various internships and re-qualify if he is to practice in Paris. But after a patient dies as a result of an oversight on Benjamin's part, when the dead man's family complains and the hospital board threatens to investigate, Benjamin blames Abdel.

Hippocrates dives headlong into the dull and the banal as it tracks how Abdel helps Benjamin discover his inner grown-up. But things pick up considerably in the third act as the staff become so disgusted by the hospital's cost-cutting and the bosses' decision to scapegoat Abdel, they rise up in mass protest.

While it has considerable charms, Hippocrates is just too predictable.

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