Review: ‘Awake’ poorly executed despite decent plot

Directed by: Joby Harold

Starring: Jessica Alba, Hayden Christensen, Lena Olin, Terrence Howard

Rated: R

Once in a great while, a movie comes along that is so dreadful that true movie lovers can’t help but revel in the utter pile of the cinematic heap.

Take “Battlefield Earth,” the last film I saw that was so amazingly awful I couldn’t wait to share it with friends when it was released on DVD. The movie remains at the top of the “What Was That?” list.

Number two is “Awake,” the debut film of writer/director Joby Harold.

Not even two of the most beautiful actresses working today – the young Jessica Alba and classic beauty Lena Olin – can give any redemption to this film. Alba has done some awful films, and by now it seems she’s getting by on her looks alone, but Olin has played some choice roles, beginning by starring with Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.”

This is a low water mark for everyone involved, and Harold may have ended his career as soon as he began it.

The form and function of “Awake” is a textbook example from Film 101 of “How Not to Make a Movie.” There’s so much laughably bad about it.

I’ll start by noting that all of the main characters (including the male lead, Hayden Christensen) are wearing bright red, inexplicably overdone red lipstick – smeary, heavy, sore-thumb noticeable red lipstick.

As for the plot, “Awake” at least has a decent premise. It seems that somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 people each year suffer from “anesthesia awareness.” They are supposedly knocked out for surgical procedures but still aware of what’s happening to them and indeed feel the cut of the scalpel and hear the blather of the surgical crew. The number purported in the film’s opening seemed unrealistically high, but in doing diligent research I found it accurate.

Christensen plays Clayton Beresford Jr. If you can’t tell by that preposterous name, he’s a billionaire with a troubled past. His father had a tragic death that has haunted Junior and his smothering mom (Olin) for years. Junior also has a bum ticker and desperately needs a heart transplant.

The medical team includes Beresford’s best friend the doctor (Terrence Howard), his new bride/nurse (Alba) and a faux anesthesiologist with a flask in his pocket (Christopher McDonald) who merely had to show up in scrubs to be allowed to do his “job.”

All of these people are acting in concert, and when Beresford doesn’t take to the anesthesia, the devious plot begins to unfold. The fact that it does so by means of flashbacks and unbearably trite-yet-overwrought narration by Christensen sets the tone of ridiculousness for the less-than-90-minute running time that seems like an eternity. The actual length of the film is as mysterious as its plot. Some listing say 89 minutes, some say 84 and one says 78. Whatever time is correct can be best stated as “too long.”

To sum it up succinctly – and as utterly ridiculously as the movie itself – here’s a quote from one of the film’s producers: “This film will do to surgery what ‘Jaws’ did to swimming in the ocean.”

Personally, I’ll take my chances with the sharks. The finned ones, that is, not the characters in “Awake.”

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield freelance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.[[In-content Ad]]