You'll also see the word "cliché" used a lot in the reviews for John Q, starring Denzel Washington. Elvis Mitchell in the New York Times refers to its "painful collection of plot clichés." Chris Vognar in the Dallas Morning News suggests that many of the scenes are laughable, "but you can take only so many cliches and telegraphed storylines before the laughs become groans." Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News calls the movie a "clichéd weeper." Many of the critics observe that the film, a frontal attack on HMOs, has its heart in the right place. But, as Jonathan Foreman notes in the New York Post, "Crude propaganda for a good cause is still crude propaganda." And Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times writes similarly that the movie "drives home its message with the subtlety of a sledgehammer."