Michael Keaton underwent a stunning career transformation in the late 1980s, beginning with his acclaimed dramatic performance in the 1988 addiction drama film Clean and Sober, followed by his casting as Batman in the eponymous blockbuster 1989 film. These roles enabled Keaton to transcend the fast-talking comedic persona with which he first gained stardom with the 1980s comedy films Gung Ho, Mr. Mom, and Night Shift.

Keaton’s first starring film vehicle following Batman was the 1990 psychological thriller Pacific Heights, in which he plays a psychotic tenant who breeds cockroaches inside a couple’s house. However, other than the 1992 Batman sequel, Batman Returns, and the acclaimed 1994 newspaper comedy-drama film The Paper, none of Keaton’s post-Batman starring film vehicles landed especially strongly with audiences and critics.

The steepening decline of his starring film career throughout the 1990s culminated with the 1998 action thriller film Desperate Measures, in which the actor plays a serial murderer whose bone marrow enables him to manipulate a cop whose dying son requires a bone marrow transplant from Keaton’s character to survive. Despite an impressive list of credits and a seeming abundance of commercial elements, Desperate Measures became the biggest flop of Keaton’s starring career. Moreover, the box-office failure of Desperate Measures, combined with the later failure of the 1998 fantasy comedy film Jack Frost, brought his starring film career to a halt and made the actor consider retirement.

Michael Keaton Plays a Brilliant Serial Murderer with Rare Bone Marrow

In Desperate Measures, Michael Keaton plays Peter McCabe, a brilliant sociopath who is serving a life prison sentence for committing several murders, including that of fellow prisoners and prison guards. Kept in multiple restraints due to his murders and repeated escape attempts, McCabe seems destined to spend the rest of his life inside the Pelican State Bay Prison supermax facility until fate intervenes in the form of San Francisco police officer Frank Conner, played by Andy Garcia.

Conner’s son, Matt, is dying of leukemia and requires a bone marrow transplant to survive. After breaking into an FBI office and accessing the bureau’s computer, Conner discovers that the only bone marrow match for his son is McCabe, who reacts initially with disinterest until McCabe realizes how he can exploit his leverage over Conner to gain privileges and possibly his freedom.

Moreover, since a bone marrow transplant is useless if the donor is deceased, it’s imperative for Conner to keep McCabe alive up until the transplant. This dilemma provides the catalyst for McCabe to behave fearlessly in his pursuit of escape, knowing that Conner wouldn’t risk killing McCabe and, therefore, ensuring his son’s death.

Keaton is effective as McCabe, whom he portrays as a master psychologist who likes to toy with people, in a precursor to the morally ambiguous roles that Keaton has specialized in playing over the past 15 years, notably as Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Unfortunately, Desperate Measures isn’t interested in exploring the dramatic possibilities raised by the film’s intriguing premise, which is instead exploited by the film primarily to feature implausible stunts and predictable chases.

The sense of desperation in Desperate Measures isn’t primarily reflected in the human story of a cop father and the ethical and legal boundaries he’s willing to cross to save the life of his son. The most desperate aspect of Desperate Measures is how quickly the film devolves into a predictable, standard action film, which has little interest in dealing with the dramatic and moral implications of the film’s story. What could have been a compelling drama and thriller becomes a derivative technical exercise.

Desperate Measures Is an Uninspired Entry in the 1990s Serial-Killer Sweepstakes

Desperate Measures was released at the tail end of the most overcrowded decade for serial killer films in history, led by the 1991 horror thriller film The Silence of the Lambs and the 1995 crime thriller film Seven. Desperate Measures was released two weeks after the 1998 supernatural thriller film Fallen, which was a box-office failure but nonetheless outperformed Desperate Measures.

With a budget of $50 million, Desperate Measures was one of the most expensive serial killer-related films of the decade. However, Desperate Measures became one of the biggest flops of the decade, both in and out of its genre. After grossing approximately $5.8 million in its opening weekend of release, the film finished its theatrical run with a domestic gross of less than $14 million.

Desperate Measures became Michael Keaton’s lowest-grossing starring film vehicle since the 1991 crime drama film One Good Cop, which grossed less than $12 million domestically. However, given its production cost, Desperate Measures easily ranks as Keaton’s biggest starring flop, followed by his other 1998 starring vehicle, Jack Frost, which became a box-office bomb after grossing less than $35 million domestically against a production cost of $50 million.

Keaton Left Hollywood After Desperate Measures

Following Desperate Measures and Jack Frost, Michael Keaton didn’t star in another film for approximately five years until the 2003 direct-to-video crime thriller film Quicksand. The next theatrical feature Keaton starred in was the 2005 supernatural horror film White Noise, which became a surprising box-office success.

Keaton’s subsequent career resurgence was guided by his core principle of focusing on the quality of roles, regardless of the commercial potential of the projects they were attached to. He demonstrated this commitment in the early 1990s when he turned down $15 million to star in a third Batman film, which became Batman Forever, ostensibly because he didn’t like the creative direction the Batman series was taking. This fateful decision was immortalized and parodied in his ultimate comeback vehicle, the 2014 comedy-drama film Birdman, which brought Keaton his first Academy Award nomination for his inspired performance as a washed-up former superhero star named Riggan Thomson and marked the beginning of Keaton’s enduring career renaissance. Desperate Measures is streaming on Tubi. Michael Keaton can next be seen in Goodrich, starring opposite Mila Kunis.