Product Description

AWAKE is a sexy, psychological thriller about a common occurrence called "anesthetic awareness" a horrifying phenomenon wherein a patient's failed anesthesia leaves him fully conscious but physically paralyzed during surgery. The patient's charming new wife is forced to struggle with her own demons as a terrifying drama unfolds around the couple.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17100 in DVD
• Brand: UNI DIST CORP (MUSIC)
• Released on: 2008-03-04
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Formats: NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 84 minutes

Amazon.com
There's a hint of classic noir in the twists and turns that make up Awake, a medical thriller that hinges on an alarming real-life condition known as anesthesia awareness, which keeps surgery patients awake but immobile during surgery. Hayden Christensen is top-billed as the scion of a wealthy banking family in desperate need of a heart transplant. Seconds after the operation commences, he discovers that he is fully conscious, yet unable to move; and what's worse, the entire procedure is slated to fail in order to claim his considerable fortune. Once the scheme is set in motion, Awake moves into high gear, and the stock characters established in the exposition-heavy opening show their true (and decidedly scurrilous) colors. Unfortunately, the suspense is undone by Christensen undergoing what appears to be a confusing out-of-body experience, and a conclusion that begs for more suspension of disbelief than most audiences will be able to summon up. Christensen and Jessica Alba (as his new bride) are attractive but bland; instead, it's Howard who delivers as the film's conflicted antihero. The supporting players, including Lena Olin as Christensen's overprotective mom, Christopher McDonald, and Arliss Howard also lend considerable credence to the material. -- Paul Gaita

Customer Reviews

3.5 Stars for a surprisingly interesting film.
Better than I had expected, but certainly not top-notch entertainment.

"Awake" is not an wholly original idea as Stephen King explored this idea in one of his short stories in which a person is mistakenly believed to be dead and is about to undergo his own autopsy. Here someone undergoes surgery while still awake and learns who his friends really are and aren't. Read the synopsis by Amazon as they did a very good and fair job. I'm going to take the real lazy way out this time and just go to my hits and misses.

Misses:

1. Too slow at points. There is a lot of exposition (with good reason), but it is still a lot of exposition.
2. The acting is not consistent. Some are terrific and others are flat.
3. So many plot twists that one just can't give this film the "willing suspension of disbelief" that it needs.
4. It moves from romance to health crisis, to scientific wonders, to absolute fantasy. It attempts to cover too many genres. That whole out of body sequence is clever, but just way out of place in this film. It's like Brian's Song meets What Dreams May Come.

Hits:

1. While not completely original (Sublime had many elements here), it is in it's own way. It is a very interesting film and it does have a few very good surprises.
2. Jessica Alba is finally in a role that isn't so cutesy. I thought she way quite convincing in her role.
3. Hayden Christensen is better than usual, but that may not be too big of a compliment.
4. Terrance Howard and Arliss Howard are always a pleasure to see, even if they are phoning in their performances for a quick paycheck.
5. This film is a short 84 minutes, so even if it isn't all you wanted or expected, it is short.
6. bloopers are hysterically funny.

I got a mild kick out of this film. I wouldn't recommend anyone to actually go see this in the theaters, but it's a good rental film.

THIS MOVIE REALLY surprised me!
i had heard so so things about this movie, but i'll tell you, what i heard was wrong. this movie is very exciting. i guess if you are waiting to be impressed, or if you are looking for plot holes, you might find them, but if you are just looking for a friday night movie, this is for you. the twists get twisty-er as the movie goes along. there are some really big moments that i didn't see coming. i thought hayden and jessica made a cute and attractive couple and i loved watching their romantic scenes. lena olin should get some props for this movie--she was incredible!

Preposterous Entertainment
Awake, the new thriller by first-time director Joby Harold, takes off from a grisly real-life phenomenon called "anesthetic awareness." This is when patients are unaccountably left fully conscious--and physically paralyzed--during surgery, and Harold (who also wrote the script) has spun a preposterously entertaining yarn from this grisly germ of an idea, and manages to hold us in a vice-like grip for pretty much the entire film. How often can you say of a Hollywood thriller that you don't have a clue what's going to happen next? Awake is brazenly indifferent to plausibility, but you can't help but admire the film's audacity. Along with fantastic plot twists, Harold throws Hitchcockian flourishes and elements of Greek tragedy into the mix like a crazed chef. In lesser hands, Awake would have been a tawdry melodrama, but Harold believes in his material so fervently (in a way a more seasoned professional never could) that the film works on several levels at once. Ingenious as it is, it's not mechanical--it has soul.

Harold brings such energy and focus to the scenes that he transcends the subject matter and gives it an almost surreal intensity, and the performances are strong enough to keep the film's nuttiness from capsizing it. Jessica Alba is suitably luscious and beguiling (her role gives new meaning to the term "heartbreaker"), and Lena Olin and Terence Howard are both in fine form. As the unfortunate victim of anesthetic awareness, Hayden Christensen comes into his own as a performer (having mercifully managed to escape the Mark Hammil curse: that of being horribly miscast by George Lucas). Christensen has an unusually expressive face (the camera takes to him), and he can convey emotion without ever appearing to do much--fortunately, because the film hinges around his internal struggle, and on our feelings of empathy for him.

Awake is a white-knuckle movie experience if ever there was one (it even carries a viewer warning), with some of the most sheerly visceral scenes of horror ever committed to celluloid. Watching someone undergoing open-heart surgery while fully conscious (and able to feel the incision) is enough to frazzle the nerves of the most hardened horror veterans, and this film is certainly not for the squeamish. Too bad the loopy plot (and the melodramatic character revelations, which are really just tired genre conventions) finally stretches our credibility to breaking point. As a result, Awake lacks a strong climax, and as a rollercoaster ride it doesn't have enough emotional depth to be fully satisfying (its shallowness is at odds with its rather contrived attempts at pathos). But for most of its length it's close to a pop classic, and probably the best metaphysical thriller since The Sixth Sense (a film I didn't much care for). In fact, Harold better watch out or he may wind up as the next M. Night Shyamalan. Awake has so many twists it makes you dizzy.