Doubts over whether or not director Michael Mailer has ever tried to wake up after dying overshadow much of this Morgan Freeman piece. The Minute You Wake Up Dead, as oxymoronic and stupid a title as it may be, is another bit of dreck from the action-thriller department that brought audiences 7Seconds starring Wesley Snipes and Blessed starring Heather Graham. If neither ring a bell, then do not be alarmed. The Minute You Wake Up Dead will ring no bell and once it slumps away into the shadowy distance, no bell will toll its demise as a frontrunner for awful Cole Hauser projects. That is all The Minute You Wake Up Dead is. This piece being remembered by one soul as an awful piece of the crime thriller genre would be an achievement.
Old school sheriff butting heads with murders, stockbrokers and every other pastiche of vague American existence mark this Freeman piece as a dull disaster. Shamefully, the opening moments do provide some experience and interesting shot choreography. Freeman’s narration, the slow burn of empty roads and atmospheric surroundings, there is pacing to The Minute You Wake Up Dead in those early moments. They do not last long. Amazing it may be to see Freeman deliver a solid performance, no less should be expected of the man who elevated Bruce Almighty. His work over the past few years has seen him fall out of favour with the relative mainstream, a sad shame but at least he is working. Freeman’s experience on camera has not wavered, just the quality of his feature films.
Hauser and Jaimie Alexander are also present with some relatively fine performances. It is only once they are removed from Freeman and his influence that The Minute You Wake Up Dead begins to crumble. It is there that audiences may realise why they are found in this feature, one so turgid and inconsequential. There are moments throughout that play up American stereotypes that died out a decade before this feature was even conceived. Why, when on a shoestring budget, does a director believe their only retort to the modern world is through cheap costumes and poor design? That is no way to build up a world, and it is a detriment to The Minute You Wake Up Dead, one of the many that plague this doomed feature that ends not with a bang, but with an old woman crashing into a mound of dirt.
Andrew Stevens. Remember that name. Around two decades ago, the man was producing solid features that are in the same run as The Minute You Wake Up Dead, his most recent production. Gone are the days of The Pledge and The Boondock Saints. Although, those days were bookended by Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, so there are no winners in this game. The twists and turns found in The Minute You Wake Up Dead are horrific. What could have been a vaguely promising and quiet piece of streaming platform filler works itself into a messy, disastrous bit of murderous intent. Freeman and company are not prepared for that swerve, nor does it seem director Mailer was either.
