COMA (1978) - ***1/2

Everyone knows Michael Crichton for writing sci-fi thrillers from THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN to JURASSIC PARK, but people forget that once upon a time ago, he actually was a pretty decent filmmaker. His career directorial highlights sums up to the classic robots-go-killer-haywire WESTWORLD, the really fun heist flick THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, and this one.

What's really odd is that you have a Harvard Medical School graduate in Crichton adapting and shooting COMA, a best-selling novel that arguably invented the "medical thriller" literary genre, which was written by another Ivy League doctor-turned-author in Robin Cook. Unless I'm mistaken, I doubt anything like this has happened in Hollywood before or since.

Anyway, with COMA you have a woman goes for a routine clinical abortion but ends up in a vegetative "coma" state. Her surgical resident friend, the beautilful Genevieve Bujold, finds out that there has been ten random unexplained comas (including a Tom Selleck cameo) occuring within the same Boston hospital in the past year, and discovers that they all have only one thing in common: They all happened in the same operating room. Nobody believes her, and on top of that, people are trying to kill her too.

If anything, Crichton is probably perfect for the material because for a movie set around a hospital, the guy sure knows his way around them, and the people who work there. Much like his later TV series ER, you have workers who throw around medical jargon that you the audience may not necessarily understand, but by watching them, you have a clear idea of what they're talking about. You have hospital politics where egos and ambitions clash brutally with truth and responsbility, you get the idea.

I enjoyed the scene when Bijold is asking Rip Torn the chief anesthesiologist for his files about the Coma patients, and forgetting Torn as one of the movie's villains, you sorta buy why Torn gives one of the more polite "screw you" movie rants I've seen in awhile. People generally don't like to be crticized at their own expertize.

What I really like is that, if my mother the former medical nurse is to be believed (and I have no reason to doubt her), COMA features two of the creepiest moments that can happen while working at a hospital:

(1) Walking all alone at the dead of night in the deadly silent hospital halls, hearing only your footsteps....then hearing other steps right behind you.
(2) Getting locked in the morgue, and the lights turned off.

That morgue scene in COMA is rather brilliant because the situation is already tense because the murdering henchman is chasing Bujold throughout the building, but on top of that, she's hiding among bodies, wrapped in plastic, and this piles on the suspense because lets admit it, that's probably one of the last places most of us would want to be, even if we're running for our lives.

What's interesting about COMA is the whole gender politics about it. For one, COMA was shot during the height of the "women's liberation" movement in the 70s, and Bujold is simpy a gal who wants to be taken seriously. When her friend dies, her co-workers expect her to go hysterical and emotional, but when she doesn't, they call her "cold." Let's admit it, there is a gender-bias against women in general regarding how they should feel. I did laugh when she told her hubby Michael Douglas to go get his own damn beer from the fridge. But then Crichton has a cheap shot up her skirt, and more than one (very nice) Bujold breast shot.

Quite frankly, I just don't get it.

Then there is her boyfriend, producer/co-star Douglas. He's the conservative and cautious of the pair, and really plays the "wife" role we see in every other thriller of this sort. It's Bujold, not him, who breaks into the ominous Jefferson Institute, and hides in the rafters high above the movie's most memorable visual, the infamous "floating" coma patients.

People will probably complain that about the ending, with Douglas racing to save Bujold from a coma-inducing surgery, of how its once again the man coming to rescue the damsel, and I would argue instead that he finally Man Up, and right on time. Good for you.

If anything, my only serious complaint against COMA is this whole horribly cheesy montage, where Douglas and Bujold away for the weekend, and you have them running down a beach, visit a small town, make love by a fireplace....is this a movie or a bad condom commercial?

That said, there is a cool if weird scene when Bujold oversees the autopsy of her pal, including the deli-like slicing of her brain. I'm reminded of the anecdote about Elvis Presley watching his friend's embalming, but like the King, she would do anything for a buddy, right? Plus, we see Ed Harris' film acting debut, back when he still had hair! :thumbsup:

Overall, Crichton directed a really good runner full of suspense and thrills, maybe his best, because how many other movies can make us perk up by the mere sound of an electrocardiogram? Too bad the guy's moviemaking career ended in the 1980s (why? One word: RUNAWAY) but while it lasted, he was good.

Plus, COMA was a rare film that had a great social impact, because both book and movie apparently caused a 60%(!) drop in organ donation to American hospitals.

Thanks alot Crichton and Cook!