Vitals is a 2019 medical crime thriller directed by Marc Morgenstern.
Richard and Dr. Jane Carson find themselves in an abandoned motel room on their vacation in India, prisoners of an organization which traffics organs, Richard himself missing a kidney.
This page will remain spoilers off due to the nature of the film.
Tropes:
- Anti-Villain: The first surgeon is a man who wants to protect his surviving family, and is coerced into performing illegal surgeries on organ harvesting victims because of it. He had also contacted the organ harvesters to get revenge on the man who killed his wife.
- Armour-Piercing Question: When Jane tries to reconcile with Richard, Richard asks her how much his life was worth, that she was willing to sell him out to organ harvesters.
- Bad Boss: Kaliyah cares more about getting the organs out of the bodies intact than he does about the lives of his own men.
- Bait the Dog: Initially presented as a long suffering wife, it turns out that Jane had sold Richard out to Kaliyah, partially for his infidelity, partially to pay off a debt.
- Cop Killer: Kaliyah's men destroy a police cruiser with explosives.
- Deal with the Devil: Kaliya allows people to use his services against others at the steep price of having to work for his organization.
- Downer Ending: Jane is forced to take Richard's heart, and subsequently forced to work for Kaliyah's harvesting organization.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Jane finds out the hard way that Kaliyah and his organization are not lapdogs who can be called off.
- Faux Affably Evil: Kaliyah, the head of the organ harvesters, puts on airs of civility and amicability.
- Forced into Evil: Downplayed. Kaliya forces former clients, doctors in particular, to harvest organs for him.
- Greed: Kaliyah harvests organs for profit.
- Karma Houdini: Kaliyah continues to profit off of his organ trafficking business unscathed by the end of the film.
- MacGyvering: Downplayed. Multiple times in the film, the Carsons use random objects in attempts to improve their situation:
- They open the vents using coins to unscrew the vent covers so that Richard can pass a phone to Jane.
- With Jane's direction, Richard uses nail clippers, a tampon, medical stitches and a needle to fix his wound, and live wires for cauterization.
- Meatgrinder Surgery: Richard is subjected to a botched suturing job, so he has to cut open his own stitches, put in new ones, and cauterize the wound with a live wire.
- The Mob Boss Is Scarier: Kaliyah posits that he poses far more of a threat than the police force, and that calling the police will only cause the deaths of multiple officers.
- Organ Theft: The film revolves around a man who wakes up to find that his kidney was removed by organ harvesters, led by a man called Kaliyah.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Kaliyah claims he likes to give the people who use his services to dispose of people a chance to back out, since he is well aware at how often civilian clients back down. When the clients persist, Kaliyah takes the opportunity to force the clients to work for him.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Kaliyah, the head of the organ harvesters, wears a suit in his appearances throughout the film.
- Wicked Cultured: The surgeon listens to opera while cutting Richard open.
