Much like 2006's White Noise, Joby Harold's Awake takes its cue from a modern day phenomenon, that being "Anaesthetic Awareness" where the sufferer is put under for an operation just like you would usually be only they are fully aware of what's going on and can feel pain despite being paralysed and unable to speak. It's certainly a creepy starting point for a thriller, and it also happens to sound like various science fiction and horror anthology stories I watched growing-up, and Harold does throw in a whole slew of twists (some of which don't always work, but there's enough of them for this to stay interesting enough) but by the time things get to the predictable and unsatisfying finish you're likely to either have been lulled into your own form of anaesthesia numbness or find enough within to be a "it's was okay, but I won't watch it again" type of movie.

Hayden Christensen plays young business tycoon Clayton, who has been sneaking around with his fiancée Sam (Jessica Alba) because he's too afraid to tell his over-bearing mother Lilith (Lena Olin) about their relationship. This could be a problem since Sam happens to work for them as an assistant and also because they want to get married sometime soon. Adding to this conundrum is the fact that Clayton also suffers from a weak heart and needs a transplant and has chosen for the procedure to be performed by his surgeon friend Jack (Terrence Howard) instead of his mother's choice.

Writer-director Howard fills the first half of his movie with many quiet and leisurely scenes of Clayton closing business deals, romancing Sam, and trying to keep his mother happy and even gets to set-up a confrontation between lover and mother when Clayton finally comes clean - mere days before his operation.

After all this fairly dull build-up, Awake does start to get it's footing a little bit. Clayton is put under and realizes that, even though everyone thinks he's under, he's awake and can feel everything. It's during these scenes that Christensen's character gets to spin an internal monologue which come across as much more cornball than I believe Howard intended. I'm not to sure about you, but if I was about to have my chest cut open and could feel such a sensation I'd be freaking out a Hell of a lot more than he does (this could be a fault of the actor's line delivery though, as it's quite badly done). Instead he just drifts in-and-out of memories, both good and bad, trying to keep the image of his beloved Sam in his head to forget the pain. But his mind is soon to go elsewhere when it turns out Jack is involved in a plot that will see him die on the operating table.

But there's more to this nefarious plot and Howard pieces it together for us by mixing scenes of Clayton figuring things out in his head while his waiting room bound mother also starts to have her suspicions. The last third does move at a decent clip, does offer up a few nice "didn't see that coming" moments, and works fairly well but things tend to get derailed by the aforementioned finale and it's overly convoluted events.

It's pretty easy to see why Awake didn't find an audience upon its theatrical release as the trailer makes it look more complicated than it actually is and while I give debuting filmmaker Harold full credit for trying something different there's just not quite enough meat here to put it into the upper echelon of medical thrillers. However, it's still a completely watchable effort which is helped by Olin's solid performance (her resume is becoming filled with steady performances such as this) and a turn by Alba that's surprising simply because she's not just being used as eye candy as she tends to be in a lot of her other movies. Christensen is another story completely as he doesn't have enough skill to carry the movie and I think this might've benefited from another choice. (Chris Hartley, 3/3/08)

Directed By: Joby Harold.
Written By: Joby Harold.

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

Picture Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: The transfer here is a clean one and it looks pretty good but the picture feels a little bit muted overall. I'm pretty sure this was a decision by the makers to give it a more "sleepy, disconnected" feel but, if not, it's softer than it should be.

Extras: The special features here are pretty skippable as we get a trailer, some storyboard to film comparisions, a thirteen-minute "making of" featurette that feels like the EPK it is, seven deleted scenes with optional commentary, and a commentary by Harold which is a mostly dry listen and doesn't keep your attention too well.