Delayed Reaction: Awakenings

What I Guessed It Was About: A bunch of people wake up from comas and try to make up for lost time.

How I Came Into It: Sometimes, I forget how long Robin Williams was looking for that elusive Oscar. It's odd that he would've felt the need to make Patch Adams after doing this one. There's some big differences but enough thematic similarities that it looks redundant in his filmography. You can't go wrong with a Robin Williams/Robert De Niro double-hander though.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) Ok, that's not entirely true. Williams and De Niro each have a lot of misfires in their career. This isn't one of them. Williams has a role that could be very showy and it starts off looking that way. As soon as De Niro shows up, Williams wisely takes a back seat and becomes more of a supporting character. I love that shift of focus. It's a movie about small victories and Williams is perfectly mild. De Niro is Oscar-baity in direct proportion to his response to recent winners Dustin Hoffman (Rain Main) and Daniel Day Lewis (My Left Foot). In hindsight, it's shocking he didn't win. It's a very solid performance. I could've even gone with a couple more scenes of complete jubilation after his initial "awakening". - I'm actually asking for a performance to be bigger. That's uncommon.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I've had the same problems here as with a lot of courtroom dramas. This same story has been done more efficiently on TV shows by now. Specifically, I thinking of an episode of House, but this is really common enough knowledge for me by now that as soon as I heard "el dopa" I knew everything that was going to happen in the movie. The performances still make this worth seeing. Without the freshness of it in 1990, it loses some of its luster.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend