Awake - acting but comatose nonetheless...

Introduction

Each year over 21 million people receive general anesthesia. The vast majority go to sleep peacefully and remember nothing. 30,000 patients, however, cannot sleep and are trapped in a state called anesthesia awareness; awake but paralysed.

So says the opening blurb to Hayden Christensen's latest duff film. The idea apparently came to director and writer Joby Harold after he found himself in this position during an operation in hospital. As with a lot of ideas, it sounds promising until you attempt to make it work on celluloid.


Clayton Beresford (Christensen) is a young tycoon who is hiding a secret from overbearing mother Lilith (Lena Olin), a secret romance with Sam Lockwood (Jessica Alba) that has been trundling along for six months; the relationship is secret as Sam works for Lilith.

Clay also suffers from heart trouble and is on the list for a transplant. Clay's cardiologist and friend Jack Harper (Terrence Howard) was the doctor who originally saved him when Clay was first admitted with heart problems, and Clay is adamant that his friend will perform the requisite surgery when the time comes; his mother meanwhile is pushing Jack towards top surgeon Dr Neyer (Arliss Howard), reminding Clay that Jack has three outstanding law suits.


Prepping Clay for surgery, Jack reminds Clay that he could die on the table and recommends putting his affairs in order in case the worst happens; this obviously includes marrying Sam. So Clay and Sam get married in secret with Jack as best man and in the pre-coital glow of first marital sex, Clay get the beeper message that a heart is ready to go and the transplant is on.

In the operating theatre, Clay is put under by replacement anesthesiologist Larry Lupin (Chrstopher McDonald) but as Jack makes the first painful incision, Clay realises that something is very wrong. He is still awake and can hear and feel everything. Then it gets worse as he realises that his friend and his surgical team plan to murder him on the operating table.

Oh noes!!!

Visual

Once more Icon provide a DVD-R as a check disc and then proceed to put a bloody great counter on the screen and then an intermittent banner right through the middle. Cheers, guys.

Audio

Only a 2.0 Stereo soundtrack on this DVD-R and no subtitles either.

Extras

None on my check disc but again I'm assured that there are extras on the retail version.

Overall

The premise of Awake is an interesting one, but it seems that director/writer Joby Harold doesn't trust this to be the central focus of his film. He has a point as it's a thankless task to try and maintain interest when your central character isn't moving, is devoid of all expression and his only method of communicating is via spoken thought. Still as he cast Hayden Christensen in the title role, then it must have been tempting at least to follow his original idea.


Sadly (for us), Harold very quickly turns this film into an out of body experience that just doesn't work, especially as Christensen's character isn't the brightest spark (despite being a tycoon and being able to speak at least a few phrases in fluent Japanese) but is suddenly not only running round the hospital in surgical scrubs as some kind of apparition but is suddenly blessed with the kind of observation skills that were never apparent before as he suddenly starts making connections to what is happening to him in real life.

What is worse is that everything that happens is telegraphed well in advance and is not surprising or even worthy of the Hitchcock-esque praise that seems to be being bestowed on this film. Besides as an OBE, Clay's experience has no impact on what can happen in real life and therefore the whole OBE angle is wasted. The twist with Lena Olin about two thirds of the way through is just plain silly, and that's a shame as she is actually the best thing about this. Jessica Alba has taken a bit of stick for her role in this film, but she's not actually too bad, although in truth Fisher Stevens is better than her in role as a devious member of the rogue surgical team.


Poor film that may have made a good episode of Law & Order with it's incessant links to New York's rich and powerful families, but a failure as a feature film.