Movie Review- Jackie K Cooper
Ninety Minutes In Heaven (Samuel Goldwyn Pictures)
Ninety Minutes In Heaven is another Christian themed movie which follows the release of the super-successful Kendricks Brothers film War Room. This movie puts forth a faith based message but concentrates more heavily on the results and recovery one man has following a harrowing automobile wreck. The visit to Heaven comes into play only during the final minutes of the film.
Don Piper (Hayden Christensen) is a man with a happy life. He is a successful minister, is married to a wonderful woman named Eve (Kate Bosworth), and has great kids. But one day he is involved in a terrible car wreck. He is pinned in his car and pronounced dead. Ninety minutes later he revives. He is alive but in horrible shape. The prognosis is bleak and the recovery at best will be terrifically painful.
The film deals with Don's recovery and his seeming hesitation to put himself into a full-fledged battle to recover. We see how his friends gathered around him, and how his wife plunged forward and did everything necessary to help him recover. It is only towards the end of the film the audience discovers what Don's thoughts were that impaired his ability to fight the good fight.
The movie is adept at providing a chronicle of Don's painful journey back to a semblance of the life he had before the accident. We get to see it in almost step by step fashion. We are exposed to the people who stood by his bedside and offered encouragement and prayed for him. We also get to see his wife's struggle to make arrangements for his health care.
What the audience misses out on is the emotions that should be provoked by such a story. We see the scenes and hear the words but the emotional content evades us. Even the strong relationship between Don and Eve never has the heart-tugging moments it should have. This might be in part because of the low level energy of Christensen's portrayal of Don. Hidden behind facial hair the actor does little to show any charisma in the role. Don Piper must have been a dynamic man but Christensen never lets us see that side of him in any way.
Bosworth is a little better as Eve. She is emotional from time to time, but never passionate about anything. The audience knows she loves her husband but they never get to see a measure of this love. The struggle of the couple is shown but the emotional journey is left behind.
The film is rated PG-13 for violence.
Ninety Minutes In Heaven is a dramatic movie about one man's experience following a brutal accident. Its message is one we can all admire, but the emotionless means of conveying the story harms its impact.
I scored Ninety Minutes In Heaven an accidental 5 out of 10.
Jackie K Cooper
www.jackiekcooper.com