Awake

Hayden Christensen is a rich heart patient who undergoes anesthesia for a heart transplant but fails to completely fall asleep. It’s the latest film to sneak into theaters courtesy of the Weinstein brothers and is actually a halfway decent little thriller. Ridiculous for sure, and at less than 80 minutes, hardly qualifies as feature-length. But it’s also much better than the studio releasing it would have you believe. The premise is crazy for sure, but director Joby Harold and cast pull it off in reasonably good fashion. Jessica Alba is very good as the seemingly too-perfect girlfriend, and Lena Olin scores some points as the mysterious mother. Nothing to get too excited about, but certainly nothing to completely dismiss as most critics have. It plays out like a decent episode of the Twilight Zone.