Post by Eddie Love on Oct 4, 2009 13:45:37 GMT -5
Clayton Beresford (Hayden Christenson) has it all. He's a filthy rich Wall Street master of the universe. Why, we're told he was "Barron's Man of the Year at 22!" He shares a palatial Manhattan home with the smoking hot Lena Olin. Unfortunately, she's his mother, and if it weren't bad enough that she's gorgeous and clingy -- and that he climbs into bed to kiss her first thing each morning -- at their Halloween party she dresses up as a nun, looking sensational in an apparent effort to make certain that every base of improper longing is covered. Oh, and his girlfriend is Jessica Alba, whose charms are enough to entice lifetime New Yorker Clayton to take his first ever trip on the subway -- to Brooklyn no less, where he has never ventured before. The guy has everything, but alas that includes a bum ticker and a rare blood type. While he waits for a donor's heart to become available, he and his surgeon (Terrence Howard), like many of Manhattan's medical and financial professionals, take a relaxing morning fishing break. They bond in the crisp autumn air while casting their rods upon the East River. Unfortunately, they return to the hospital lugging rod and reel having caught nothing. (Or fortunately, I'm not sure how someone sporting a $5K topcoat would clean and store the fish they just caught. Or did they catch and release? Just some of the questions this film raises...) When an organ does become available, Clayton goes under the knife and this is where the heart of our story (pun intended) unfolds. You see, Clayton is a one of the 30,000 incidents each year of patients who remain awake (though immobile) during surgery. In this terrifying state he pieces together, through recollections and listening to what is going on around him in the operating room, that a nefarious plot to kill him is taking place.
If all this sounds ridiculous, it is, but it's also a giddily enjoyable guilty pleasure. Think Sorry, Wrong Scalpel. This is the type of movie that sells itself by the <90 minute running time that makes it attractive late night on-demand cable viewing. It's one of those movies with a hip cast that gets dumped in theaters without being screened for critics, like the recent lethal, tedious bummer Passengers with Anne Hathaway or whatever that similarly unmemorable one with Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams was called. I watched those and remember little of them. Awake, however is well shot and efficiently entertaining, however silly and improbable. I also like that the picture looks like it was actually filmed in NYC.
The scenes where Clayton cries out for help and is heard by no one are like the film Johnny Got His Gun , or at least the Metallica video that sampled from it. These scenes are maybe unplayable, and Hayden Christenson doesn't try to keep you from laughing out loud. (I know a lot of people can't stand him from the Star Wars prequels, but I'm a big fan of his terrific, audacious performance as Stephen Glass in Shattered Glass.) And amid all the overwrought goings-on, no one mentioned anything to Lena Olin who turns in an intelligent and moving performance. I also liked Christopher McDonald as the boozy anesthetist -- who may be our hero's only hope! -- and Fisher Stevens as a sneering unrepentant bad-guy. And Jessica Alba does a lively turn as well, and it's not metaphysically possible she could look hotter. In fact, I'd rate this whole thing higher if the finale didn't waste time with a ridiculous revisiting of Clayton's father's death long ago. And we don't get any scenes of him confronting those who tried to kill him. I wouldn't have minded if the picture lasted longer and included some dramatic pay-off.
If all this sounds ridiculous, it is, but it's also a giddily enjoyable guilty pleasure. Think Sorry, Wrong Scalpel. This is the type of movie that sells itself by the <90 minute running time that makes it attractive late night on-demand cable viewing. It's one of those movies with a hip cast that gets dumped in theaters without being screened for critics, like the recent lethal, tedious bummer Passengers with Anne Hathaway or whatever that similarly unmemorable one with Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams was called. I watched those and remember little of them. Awake, however is well shot and efficiently entertaining, however silly and improbable. I also like that the picture looks like it was actually filmed in NYC.
The scenes where Clayton cries out for help and is heard by no one are like the film Johnny Got His Gun , or at least the Metallica video that sampled from it. These scenes are maybe unplayable, and Hayden Christenson doesn't try to keep you from laughing out loud. (I know a lot of people can't stand him from the Star Wars prequels, but I'm a big fan of his terrific, audacious performance as Stephen Glass in Shattered Glass.) And amid all the overwrought goings-on, no one mentioned anything to Lena Olin who turns in an intelligent and moving performance. I also liked Christopher McDonald as the boozy anesthetist -- who may be our hero's only hope! -- and Fisher Stevens as a sneering unrepentant bad-guy. And Jessica Alba does a lively turn as well, and it's not metaphysically possible she could look hotter. In fact, I'd rate this whole thing higher if the finale didn't waste time with a ridiculous revisiting of Clayton's father's death long ago. And we don't get any scenes of him confronting those who tried to kill him. I wouldn't have minded if the picture lasted longer and included some dramatic pay-off.