Medicine Man
Hot Scientist Dr. Rae "Bronx" Crane (Lorraine Bracco) journeys deep into The Amazon to find out what Dr. Robert Campbell (Sean Connery), a Bunny Ears Professor, has been doing since he stopped sending in status reports. Turns out he's discovered the cure for cancer. Well, sort of. He's "lost" it (oops!) and he has a week to find it again before a logging company builds a road through the only area of forest where the cure is known to exist.
Tropes used in Medicine Man include:
- Composer Allusion: In concert stages, veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith who did the beautiful music for this film would recount a story of how Connery copied Goldsmith's signature ponytail hairstyle for his character Robert Campbell in the film. In the film's closing credits Goldsmith is listed as "hair designer".
- The Amazon (the Amazon)
- And That Little Girl Was Me: A very not-nice version.
- The Atoner (Dr. Robert Campbell)
- Chekhov's Gun
- Book Ends: "I would like a meal and a bath." "Unbutton your shirt."
- Cure for Cancer: Robert Campbell managed to find it with extracts from a species of bromeliad endemic to the Amazon, but unfortunately he couldn't seem to find it. It turned out that it wasn't in the bromeliads at all but through a rare breed of ants.
- Going Native
- National Geographic Nudity
- Green Aesop
- Hot Scientist (Bronx)
- I Choose to Stay (Bronx, at the end)
- It's All My Fault / My Greatest Failure (Campbell was the man that accidentally introduced the swine flu to the other tribe, which resulted in every one of their members dying. Hence his insistence on Bronx' keeping a quarantine before interacting with the natives.)
- Littlest Cancer Patient
- Sadly Mythtaken: At some point in the movie, the tribesmen talk about Juju. However, Juju is a reference to West African folk religion, and has nothing to do with Native American tribes.
- Wham! Line: "I thought you meant Mocara."