The bad guys Charlie and Wesley, are brilliantly played by Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock — a father-son team. Wesley is a hot-headed loose canon who spontaneously decides to scalp Del before Charlie has a chance to intervene, after which Charlie really has no choice but to shoot Del dead. Betty witnesses the violent murder from behind a door, and enters a state of shock. Instead of screaming, she quietly rewinds her VCR to watch a soap scene that the murder caused her to miss. From that moment on, she acts as if Del is not dead at all, and she decides to leave him to go in search of her ex-fiancé, Dr. David Ravell. She always wanted to be a nurse, and on arriving in California, goes to the local hospital to try and get a job. She inadvertently gets involved in a bizarre crime outside the hospital and ends up saving a man’s life — this earns her two rewards: she makes friends with a girl who lets her stay in her apartment, and she gets a job in the hospital.
By now, this story must sound so far fetched that you probably won’t believe me when I say it’s not — it’s so well done and so well acted that it seems perfectly reasonable. In fact, this material has the potential to be turned into a diabolical film, and in the hands of lesser film-makers it probably would have been. Even the scene where Betty finally meets the actor that plays David is brilliant. How could he possibly not think she was deranged? You’ll have to wait and see.
Back to the story. The bad guys have discovered that Betty witnessed the murder, and, posing as cops, they attempt to track her down. She is Charlie’s last ‘job’ before he retires, and during the days that follow, he becomes more and more obsessed with finding her. He talks to her picture, fantasises about her, and gradually it becomes apparent that he is not seeking to kill her, but is somehow falling in love with her. Rock’s performance as Wesley is absolutely perfect; he’s crazy, he’s tired, and he’s completely fed up with his dad’s obsessing. Somehow we sense that if Wesley gets to Betty first, the film will have a very violent and unpleasant ending. Part of the fun is in the not-knowing what will happen when they do find her. She’s so sweet and vulnerable that I was starting to fantasise about her — but I digress. What’s charming is that Betty’s obsession with David is caused by psychological trauma, whereas Charlie’s obsession with Betty is — well, sadly it seems that he’s really quite a sweet man who took a wrong turn somewhere in his past.
To really enjoy Nurse Betty you have to look deeper than you might think — this film is not just a dumb flick about some daft girl and nasty men trying to kill her, it’s a story about self-discovery, self-sacrifice and believing that anything is possible.