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Legally speaking John Q was not justified in the actions he took in order to save his son. Firstly because he held up the hospital and took hostages. Legally and morally this is not acceptable, holding others for personal gain is not right, even though it was to save his son’s life. This movie maintains the rule of law by showing at the end of the movie John does get convicted of kidnapping. This shows that even though he did it for what were the right reasons for him; he’s still not above the law. A positivist would look at this movie and say that this man held people up, and threatened to kill them so he should be put into jail for the maximum sentence possible. This is because positivists believe that the law is the law and there should be no exceptions. This is contrary to the idealists (natural law followers) way of seeing things. They would believe he should get no time in jail because in order to save his son he had to do what he did since there was no other option. These looks at law are different than what was actually used in the movie. The movie uses the legal realism way of thinking. This way of thinking states that there are many factors that come into the law, for example John Q only held up the hospital because he had to and there was no other way. Although this is not like the natural law, they still believe that he should get time, but not to the full extent the law is allowed. This is the way I think, that you should look at all the circumstances in a case as relevant. This is my take on the legal aspects of the movie John Q.