The Good: Given the Bad (see below) this film is surprisingly good at hooking you. If only it had carried through. Also, from reading the other comments, it appears that fans of Denis Leary can't stand Hope Davis and visa versa - yet they both have excellent moments, if you're a fan of either, you might want to see this film just because.
The Bad (SPOILERS!): The story and its staging promise dark complexities, revelations and an emotional ride. It does not deliver -- worse, it doesn't really try. The story is illogical on almost every front.
Illogical Plot 1: The patient wakes from a coma with 'delusions' that are in fact what's really going on. But how does a coma patient know what happened while he was out? (we never find out). Given that this is not an action or mystery film - what are these delusions supposed to be setting up?
Illogical Plot 2: Perhaps we're supposed to be asking ourselves "is he sane or isn't he?". Yet the truth is revealed in a straight forward manner over the course of several scenes 2/3 of the way through the film. Denis Leary does a decent job with the material, but the script and the director portray his character as exactly what he is - an average person who's heavily disorientated and distrusting in a situation that, what do you know, induces disorientation and distrust. {He's also emotionally disturbed by the personally trauma that led to his being in a coma - but that's another thread that is never fully explained or incorporated into the plot.} So where's the tension in a documentary like presentation of a distressed patient who bares no emotional secrets and who's broadcasting the end of the film in his first scene?
Illogical Motivations: The patient was frozen three years into his coma, and is then thawed 25 years later, specifically so that his body's natural immunity can be used to fight a horrible plague. Naturally, this requires a medical procedure that will kill the patient. So why do the doctors spend weeks trying to cure his delusions? Especially as they know he's not actually delusional? Why don't they chop him up day one? Its never explained.
By the way, you'd think what with the plague and the intent of killing their patient and all, there would be lots of emotional complexity with the staff, right? And that the patient (who dies more or less willingly) would have a complex internal dialog going on, right? Particularly in a film that uses the style of a dramatic character study, right? Wrong. It's not that they attempt it and fail - its not even in the script.
I wish there had been some big revelation in the end. Even a really bad one. Some justification for my staying up an hour past bedtime to see this film through.
The Bad (SPOILERS!): The story and its staging promise dark complexities, revelations and an emotional ride. It does not deliver -- worse, it doesn't really try. The story is illogical on almost every front.
Illogical Plot 1: The patient wakes from a coma with 'delusions' that are in fact what's really going on. But how does a coma patient know what happened while he was out? (we never find out). Given that this is not an action or mystery film - what are these delusions supposed to be setting up?
Illogical Plot 2: Perhaps we're supposed to be asking ourselves "is he sane or isn't he?". Yet the truth is revealed in a straight forward manner over the course of several scenes 2/3 of the way through the film. Denis Leary does a decent job with the material, but the script and the director portray his character as exactly what he is - an average person who's heavily disorientated and distrusting in a situation that, what do you know, induces disorientation and distrust. {He's also emotionally disturbed by the personally trauma that led to his being in a coma - but that's another thread that is never fully explained or incorporated into the plot.} So where's the tension in a documentary like presentation of a distressed patient who bares no emotional secrets and who's broadcasting the end of the film in his first scene?
Illogical Motivations: The patient was frozen three years into his coma, and is then thawed 25 years later, specifically so that his body's natural immunity can be used to fight a horrible plague. Naturally, this requires a medical procedure that will kill the patient. So why do the doctors spend weeks trying to cure his delusions? Especially as they know he's not actually delusional? Why don't they chop him up day one? Its never explained.
By the way, you'd think what with the plague and the intent of killing their patient and all, there would be lots of emotional complexity with the staff, right? And that the patient (who dies more or less willingly) would have a complex internal dialog going on, right? Particularly in a film that uses the style of a dramatic character study, right? Wrong. It's not that they attempt it and fail - its not even in the script.
I wish there had been some big revelation in the end. Even a really bad one. Some justification for my staying up an hour past bedtime to see this film through.