The movie reviewed here is not for children.
- GENRE: Thriller
- ACTORS: Hayden Christensen, Lena Olin, Jessica Alba, Terrence Howard, Christopher McDonald, Thomas A. McMahon, Sam Robards, Poorna Jagannathan, Steven Hinkle, Charlie Hewson
- RATING: R
- PARENTAL NOTE: Not intended for children. Some bad language and questionable situations. Cutting of flesh in a hospital operating room setting.
- INTENDED AUDIENCE: This movie is intended for fans of the genre, and may not be appreciated by others.
- GENERAL PLOT: (No spoilers) A rich man goes into a heart transplant operation immediately after his late night wedding. You are supposed to be asleep during this type of surgery. See if you can guess from the title if this was the case in this movie.
- REVIEW: The basic premise portrayed in the movie — being awake during surgery, despite anesthetic — is apparently accurate though rare. But not nearly rare enough if it is YOU under the knife. Actually, the statistics are pretty consistent with the 1 in 700 cases as quoted in the movie. As someone with absolutely no familiarity with hospital protocol, many of the other events portrayed in this movie seem hard to believe. Apparently, my suspicions are well founded. But aside from the inaccurate portrayal of hospital procedures in heart transplants, this was really a pretty good movie. Plus, I’ve been informed by people more knowledgeable than me that Jessica Alba is not too hard on the eyes, if need be. The plot swerved wildly from what I would have expected. HINT (but no spoiler): I expected a sappy romance.
- RECOMMENDATION: This is a thriller movie. Many people will be highly offended by every movie in this genre because of the bad language and other questionable elements. However, if you are a fan of this genre–I think you will enjoy this somewhat sappy love story. But–unexpectedly, the two people REALLY in love are not the husband and wife.
- RATING (out of 5 stars):
MOVIE RATING SYSTEM:
Start with zero (0) out of five (5) possible STARS
- Add one STAR if it looks like the movie was made by professional film makers–not 4 or 5 guys with a camcorder.
- Add one STAR if the film has a story, theme or plot (optional for horror and/or zombie movies); or if the movie makes any sense.
- Add additional STARS for special effects, acting, good moral message(s), realistic zombies, scariness,
interesting theme or plot and the like. - Subtract STARS for extreme bad acting, COMPLETELY awful themes/messages, overall INCREDIBLE trashiness, graphic and persistent lewdness, and the like.
