Quite often in Hollywood a studio buys a script from an unknown writer, gives the project to an unknown director, and signs a name actor to play the lead role in the hopes that they can draw the box office crowd. They rarely care whether the end product is good or not, they want their big bucks, and if lucky, maybe snag the "next big thing".
With Playing God, Touchstone Pictures was hopeing that X-Files' David Duchovny would be their draw, this being his first feature since starting the series. Unfortunately it didn't work. With most films, people decide wheter it's a good film or bad film after the first twenty minutes (like the twenty page rule for books), and they usually stick to that for the entire film. Unfortunately for this film, the first twenty minutes aren't its greatest. The script seems sloppy, a "getting high" sequence is poorly done, there's a pretty terrible flashback sequence and an overdub from Duchovny is rather sloppy.
In the film Duchovny plays a surgeon who used his own medication to keep himself awake. Unfortunately he mixed his uppers with his downers and wound up botching an operation. He was barred from medical practice and he kept on with the drugs. Through an unfortunate(?) sequence of events, the surgeon came into the company of a drug supplier played by Timothy Hutton. This supplier was climbing the ranks in L.A. drug scene, but not without some opposition. Where there's opposition, people get hurt. Where there's hurt people, there's need for a doctor. Get the connection?
Duchovny falls for Hutton's girlfriend, and agrees to be the guys doctor-on-call. Not long afterwords Duchovny is confronted by FBI agents trying to take down Hutton's operation, but only after he's made transactions with Chinese connections. They already have a man inside but need Duchovny for a witness. Things only go wrong from there, but the good surgeon decides to clean up his act and set things a little more right.
After you get over the 20-minute hump, the film becomes quite good. Tense moments, good character interaction, and some strange tertiary characters. While it will never be a stellar piece of American cinema, it is a good, worthwhile watch.