PoochyB’s Flick Reviews

Not sure why I never heard of this movie except from browsing Netflix. About 45 minutes into it, I seriously thought about giving up on it. It wasn’t because the movie was bad. It wasn’t. It was just disturbing. Hayden Christensen (from Shattered Glass and Anakin Skywalker from the Star Wars movies) is a billionaire Wall Street whiz. A weak heart renders him into surgery at the hands of his trusted friend and doctor, played by Terrence Howard (from Crash and Iron Man). His girlfriend, and fiance later on in the movie is played by Jessica Alba (TV’s Dark Angel, Fantastic Four, and Into the Blue). Lena Olin (The United States of Leland, Chocolat) plays his mother.

A side-plot here: Christensen and Alba are in love, but Olin is against it. I guess a pretty major theme of the movie is “Mother knows best.”

So Christensen undergoes surgery, but doesn’t go under because the anesthetics don’t work on him. According to a tagline at the beginning of the movie, “Over 21 million people are anesthetized every year, and about 30,000 don’t go under. They stay awake.” It’s a scary thought, but I can’t imagine it to be the way the movie depicts. Nonetheless, very interesting.

There’s a twist, but I’m not going to spoil it here. I’d say the film’s worth checking out. Jessica Alba actually gives a pretty convincing performance here, which is surprising. Terrence Howard is pretty good, as is Lena Olin. I haven’t seen Christensen in enough movies to judge his acting, but it wasn’t bad. The monologues get tiring pretty quick, but I guess they were necessary in this case.

Awake was written and directed by first-timer Joby Harold.

I have new-found respect for Michelle Williams (of Dawson’s Creek and Brokeback Mountain fame). She’s got great legs. Aside from that, Deception is a pretty poorly-put-together thriller. Two guys become buddy-buddy. Switch phones by accident. There’s a sex club involved (which made things mildly interesting). Some hot women (Maggie Q had a cameo role, in lingerie, no less).

Hugh Jackman (X-Men, Van Helsing, and The Prestige) plays a pretty good villian. I’d like to see him in more roles like this one. Ewan McGregor (Star Wars, The Island) plays an accountant, unconvincingly. I’d like to see him stick to his light-saber bearing roles. I think he’s a decent actor, but he’s got to choose his roles more carefully.

First-time director Marcel Langenegger did an OK job, I suppose. The failure of this movie is on the writer, Mark Bomback, who also did Godsend and Live Free or Die Hard (the 4th intsallation). I liked Die Hard, so maybe this guy should stick to pure action-writing.