Awake(2007)- User Reviews

Skating on the very thin ice of a dual, unlikely premise, this movie is destined for the bottom of the pond. Intended as a thriller, it is more irritating than riveting. About one tenth of one percent of surgery patients are still aware of what is happening to them after anastesia, but cannot communicate this fact. This is premise #1. Premise #2 is that a surgeon and a fiancee are secretly plotting to kill the film's main character, a fabulously wealthy financier with a heart that is about to fail. The transplant operation provides the easy opportunity, and all is going according to plan when his adoring mother discovers the plot, and knowing that her heart will be a perfect match for him (who is now on a heart pump machine) commits suicide and then in death (somehow she knows she will be able to talk to him then) convinces him to come back to life. You see, the victim was in a state of suspension somewhere between death and life, so he also could converse with the dead. Turns out mom knew best all along, as she had a very bad vibe about both surgeon and girlfriend (they get engaged and married the very same night the operation is performed--a pretty busy day). Earlier portrayed as being an obnoxious mama, she now is the heroine who sacrifices her life for her beloved child. A ridiculous and unnecessary plot twist is thrown in at the end, the mother having killed her husband on Christmas Eve when our hero was just a little boy. Somehow his blocking out the fact he observed this as a child is supposed to have led to his feelings of inadequacy regarding his financier father. This lousy film suggests that he will from now on go forward with confidence in his own abilities. The fiancee and surgeon go off to jail. What a bore.