Chîmu Bachisuta no Eikô
2008 / 120m - Japan
Mystery
3.0*/5.0*
The Glory of Team Batista poster

Watches

February 13, 2021

3.0*/5.0*

A decent, though somewhat unspectacular medical thriller that is slightly elevated by the joyous performance of Hiroshi Abe. Team Batista's TV roots are a bit too obvious at times, with Nakamura failing to make a true effort to hide them, but overall the whodunit aspects were pretty effective.

Team Batista is a lauded team of surgeons who have a perfect track record performing the Batista operation, a somewhat experimental procedure that has a mere 60% success rate. But when three procedures in a row fail, people are becoming suspicious and an investigation is launched to find out what is going on.

With Takeuchi and Abe in the lead the film has two serious assets, the rest is decidedly more pedestrian. These two actors manage to single-handedly drive up the tension and make the mystery elements work, other than that it's pretty decent, but a bit too long and not very cinematic. Solid filler in other words.