Coma (2012)

This A&E mini-series is one of the last productions to have Tony Scotts name in its credits, given the producers death two weeks before its premier. Now I personally have been in a coma and was curious to see how this productions depiction of that odd state compares with my own muffled memories thereof. However I miss read what this mini-series was to be about, its not about being in a coma, its about a nefarious plot to put people in comas for hidden purposes. No matter, this was good, turns out to be a medical thriller based on a Robin Cook novel of over 30 years ago, which had also been adapted into a movie once before.

The cast here is impressive, Richard Dreyfuss, Geena Davis, James Woods and Ellen Burstyn in supporting parts, with Burstyn's a particularly hammy one which doesn't make a ton of sense but is fun to watch, which pretty much applies to this production in toto.  The underused Lauren Ambrose is the lead playing Susan Wheeler a young medical student interning at a hospital that her grandfather co-founded (this movie is apparently set in the Atlanta area, but that isn't made clear until late in the second half). Susan notices that the hospital has been experiencing an unusual number of comas of late and proceeds to investigate, she is warned off, and threatened, but a well connected surgeon who has his own suspicions about what's going on (played by James Woods) becomes her unofficial patron and encourages her efforts. There is also a likable love interest in the form of Dr. Marc Bellows (Steven Pasquale, who interestingly made his film debut playing a love interest to the brother of  Lauran Ambrose's character on the HBO series Six Feet Under).

There are secretive staff at the hospital and even more secretive facility for coma patients call The Jefferson Institute. Susan's apartment is bugged and her roommate driven off, while Dr. Bellows has drugs planted in his car, and James Woods meets an untimely accident that ends up putting him in, you guessed it, a coma. There was a little moment early in the production were it looked like Susan, after a head injury at a swimming pool might have ended up in a coma herself, and whole mini-series would have simply occurred in her head, that was not to be however, though that probably would have been more interesting. Still I'm not really complaining, this was a fun thriller that doesn't take its self to seriously. Michael Weston, who menaced Ambrose's characters brother David (Michael C. Hall) on Six Feet Under, menaces her quite effectively in this production. I'm thinking the casting directly must have been watching a certain DVD set just prior to beginning work on this project. ***