Awake (2007)
(Youtube Streaming, December 2020) The hook to Awake is as terrifying as it is simple: What if, during open-heart surgery, you remained awake and heard… the doctor plotting to kill you? Of course, getting to that point requires a few specific circumstances that the film is happy to set up: Young billionaire, hot girlfriend, heart-surgeon friend and domineering mother – all the ingredients for a wild thriller. To its credit, Awake understands that it’s completely preposterous, and goes even further into the madness: not content with having the character awake during his own open-heart surgery, it goes for astral projection and lets him roam the corridors of the hospital during the surgery, free to collect the clues that will explain what’s going on. Then things get kicked up another melodramatic notch, as some people realize what is going on and try to save the billionaire from a murderously conceived operation. Awake ends far closer to fantasy than to medical thriller, but it’s not a terrible ride after all. Sure, there are plenty of plot contrivances and slack moments and some annoying mid-2000s directorial tricks. But it keeps viewers’ attention throughout, and can benefit from an interesting cast, whether it’s Hayden Christensen as a billionaire, Jessica Alba as his new wife, Lena Olin as a mother more complicated than at first glance, or Terrence Howard as a heart surgeon. Awake is not that good of a movie — but it’s fun, and I’ve seen far worse mediocre ones.