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Starring Genieve Bujold, Michael Douglas. ![[Photo]](/photos/coma1.jpg) Here's a little bit of trivia that you can tell people and appear somewhat "tapped into" modern society. Michael Crichton, who not only created ER, that little TV show on NBC, and who has written over ten different novels including Jurassic Park, Congo, and Sphere, has also written nine screenplays, including one for a little film called Twister, and directed seven major motion pictures, Coma fitting under both of the previous headings. Oh, and Crichton also went to Harvard and graduated from medical school. Now there's a resume I'd like to have.Coma, originally a best selling novel by Robin Cook, is a medical thriller in the first order. Crichton, using his medical background, wrote Coma's screenplay and directed with this firmly in mind. Hypodermic needles are present, doctors speak technically accurate statements, operations are routine, not spectacular, and, good God, did I mention that needles were present? Geneive Bujold, who apparently has starred in something close to twenty motion pictures in the last thirty years that I just have not seen, stars as Dr. Susan Wheeler. Wheeler's best friend, Nancy, was to have minor surgery at the hospital where Wheeler work and then be up and around later that day. In actuality, Nancy has her minor surgery and ends up in an unreversible coma (see the connection with the title?). Wheeler is convinced there is something rotten in Denmark, and with the help of her blockheaded boyfriend, Michael Douglas, begins to search for the truth. A pre-Magnum Tom Selleck (not to be confused with a cro-Magnum Tom Selleck) and much younger versions of Ed Harris and Douglas appear, but it is Bujold who carries this film. The acting is solid, the score, by Jerry Goldsmith, delightfully creepy, and the script--did I mention Crichton had something to do with it--tight. A special Stumped at the Video Store award goes to Coma for having the bad guy actually get arrested by the men in blue at the end. There's no suicide, no hostage taking, no snipers on the roof to take the bad guy out, just handcuffs and miranda rights. Coma was suspenseful to the point where I almost wanted to fast forward through the action because my nerves were so on edge. This was a very entertaining film that definitely explains why Crichton has stayed so prominent within Hollywood society over the last twenty years.
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![[Photo]](/photos/coma2.jpg)
It was amazing to see how many cliché events occurred while watching this film. Wheeler escapes a building through the ventilation systems--when are people going to learn if they are participating in a very illegal and very profitable activity that the air ducts should be small enough so that the good guys can't scoot around throughout the whole building unseen--has her drink drugged from a person she shouldn't have trusted, and barely makes it into a train car before her pursuer catches up with her, but Crichton, despite these clichés, has engaged the viewer on a much deeper level than normal through the use of deft camera angles and interesting settings.