After exhausting all other options San Francisco police officer Frank Connor (Andy Garcia) breaks into the FBI computer. He is searching for a potential donor for his son Matt (Joseph Cross), who has leukemia. A compatable donor is found but it's Peter McCabe (Michael Keaton) who happens to be psychopath. McCabe is also doing time for killing several people, he's escaped from prison twice, and has an IQ around 160. At first McCabe denies Connor's request to act as a donor but later concedes, seeing it as a chance to escape. As expected McCabe escapes before the surgery and gets loose in the hospital. Knowing that death for the fugitive equals death for his son Connor will do anything to see that McCabe stays alive.
This is a pretty thin plot. Desperate Measures keeps flip-flopping. One minute it's a drama about a dying kid and the next minute there's a bunch of action and explosions, unfortunately it's not very successful in either department. Why didn't they try to give McCabe the anesthetic at the prison and then transport him to the hospital? Or when McCabe escaped at the hospital, why didn't the cops shoot off a leg or better yet shoot him with a tranquilizer? They needed him alive not fully functioning. The car chase was awful; it looked like something from an episode of CHIPS. Keaton did a good job as the almost likable psycho. Desperate Measures is lacking in many areas and is not worth seeing.