DR. DEATH (2021) – A terrifying true story that will make you mad as hell

True stories when well adapted always makes for good viewing. They not only serve the fundamental function of entertaining, but also provide an added value of informing and enlightening the viewer on something that actually happened. Dr. Death falls under this category and tells the amazing and terrifying true story of an American neurologist surgeon, a Dr. Christopher Duntsch whose incompetence resulted in a trail of failed operations that left his patients permanently maimed or dead.

What makes his tale of malpractice unique was how he was allowed to continue his practice and causing harm to his unsuspecting patients even after continuous disasters in the operation theatre under his hands. Joshua Jackson portrays this modern day monster in a remarkable performance. He had to play Christopher Duntsch through a wide age range from his college and university days until his inevitable arrest when he was 44 years old. Through the years we begin to see the transformation of the man from the young energised and super motivated young resident, and into a corky young neurosurgeon before becoming the monster at the end. The transformation is subtle and underlying this is the common attribute of someone who is intelligent and have the uncanny ability to project a confidence to people whether they are his patients or investors.

The supporting cast which includes Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater all gave convincing performances supporting the story and keeping things real and believable. Even though Dr. Death eventually gets arrested, watching the series makes us realised that he was able to carry out his crimes with the support or rather the failure of the systems surrounding his life. The series show clearly how the failure of the education system, the medical system, and the law, all somehow played a role in this. Even his family and friends were instrumental to what he became. Often the systems are motivated by greed and internal politics. Thankfully through the actions of real life heroes, he was brought to justice against all sorts of obstacles. Instrumental to this happening were the efforts of Dr Henderson (Alec Baldwin) and Dr Kirby (Christian Slater) and a young prosecutor Michelle Shughart (AnnaSophia Robb). If not for these people he could very well be killing people till today!

Dr. Death succeed in portraying the story of a modern day monster in a realistic and unadulterated manner. It achieve the rare feat of educating the viewers as well as entertaining them. Dr Christopher Duntsch has earned himself the title of Dr Death and his story has spawned a number of documentaries as well. One can only hope that this sort of things don’t ever happen again today.