John Q. Archibald (Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington) is an ordinary man who works at a factory and takes care of his family. His wife Denise (Kimberly Elise) and young son Michael (Daniel E. Smith) are his world. But when Michael falls seriously ill and needs an emergency heart transplant operation that John Q. can’t afford and his health insurance won’t cover, he vows to do whatever it will take to keep his son alive.

With time and options running out, a desperate gamble becomes his only hope -- he takes the emergency room hostage.

As John Q. barricades himself inside the hospital along with his unwitting group of emergency room hostages, many of them in need of medical care themselves, he faces off with a veteran police hostage negotiator (Robert Duvall) and a quick- tempered police chief (Ray Liotta) who wants to

bring a swift end to the stand-off.

Denzel Washington stars in John Q., an action drama about the extraordinary chance one father takes to protect his son, becoming both an unlikely hero and a criminal in the eyes of the law. Directed by Nick Cassavetes from a screenplay by James Kearns, John Q. stars Denzel Washington, Robert Duvall, Kimberly Elise, Eddie Griffin, Shawn Hatosy, Anne Heche, Ray Liotta,

James Woods and Daniel E. Smith.

John Q. is produced by Mark Burg and Oren Koules. Michael DeLuca, Richard Saperstein and Avram Butch Kaplan serve as executive producers. The distinguished behind-the- scenes team is led by cinematographer Rogier Stoffers, editor Dede Allen and production designer Beatrix Aruna Pasztor. Aaron Zigman composed the score.

New Line Cinema releases John Q. (rated PG-13 by the M.P.A.A. for “violence, language and intense thematic elements) nationwide on February 15, 2002.