DVD Reviews: Awake | Deception

Published on Saturday 23 August 2008 10:20

AWAKE (15) £17.99 Directors: Joby Harold Running time: 82 minutes ** DECEPTION (15) £19.99 Director: Marcel Langenegger Running time: 110 minutes **

AWAKE

She sees dead people, does Jessica Alba. But then Hayden Christensen suffers from anaesthetic awareness during a heart transplant only to then become the chief narrator, so there's a lot to take in during this remake of the 1992 Korean medical thriller of the same name (yes, that's just how inventive this film is).

The critics unanimously panned this as a bit of a duff effort, and it has to be said that Christensen has a fairly deadening effect on the script long before his character finds himself laid out on a surgeon's table, paralysed but fully conscious of the sights and sounds around him.

A hotshot businessman in Manhattan, Christensen's Clay Beresford is at war with his mother over who to choose as his surgeon for his forthcoming op and over his choice of wife in the poor secretary (Alba).

His dilemma is between the trusted medical mate of mummy's, and the more maverick scalpel wielder but best mate of Clay's, Terrence Howard. No prizes for guessing who gets picked, and there really are no real prizes in this drama which, despite dealing with what is a fascinating and terrifying area of medicine, fails to inject much life into proceedings.

DECEPTION

You could experience a sense of dj vu if you watched both of this week's below par releases together. For in Deception, Ewan McGregor also stars as businessman in Manhattan.

That's where the comparisons end, however, as our Ewan is the auditor geek, enticed into the murky world of bank and business fraud by the lure of sexual experimentation (no, surely not Ewan McGregor?) as offered by the devil in a dark suit, here played by Hugh Jackman doing his best to play the seductive fraudster lawyer.

McGregor plays the office nerd to begin with, but the audience are expected to believe that a few romps with the likes of Charlotte Rampling and Michelle Williams would be enough to turn an outcast into a credible partner in crime to Jackman's more Machiavellian criminal.

What is even more unconvincing, however, is McGregor's attempt to create a seductive performance out of a seriously miscast and poorly directed plot. Even without the glasses, and with the hair a bit ruffled, there's still no disguising the fact the Scot has about as much depth of acting skills as a puddle at the side of a road.