Very disappointing...

It is a performances centric movie

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The main problem with the film watching it today is that it's almost four decades old as I write this, thereby having quite a dated quality to it. The story itself is a pretty good one with an element of suspense supported by the idea that maybe something like this could actually happen. If you think about it, the ebay for body parts concept is in full play today for important organs like the heart, liver and kidneys, so who knows if in the deep, dark recesses of medical malpractice something like this might be going on even now.What will really blow you away is when the story moves over to the Jefferson Institute and you get to see all those comatose bodies suspended in mid-air waiting for who knows what. That was just the absolute worst stuff of horror one could imagine if you were somebody like Dr. Susan Wheeler (Genevieve Bujold) investigating the sudden 'deaths' of patients coming out of Operating Room #8.So with all the possible nightmare conspiracy thoughts going through Wheeler's head, I was rather surprised that the story reverted back to a 'keep it simple' strategy by the outlaw doctors running this little medical scam. The carbon monoxide strategy filled that bill perfectly, but gee, wouldn't you think Dr. Bellows (Michael Douglas) could have just burst into the operating room when his girlfriend was on the table instead of taking the long way around through the labyrinth of storage rooms and duct work? At least he made the save, for a while there I thought he was in on the whole body parts business himself.Like any job I guess, one gets somewhat blasé about the work conditions and every day boredom that might set in, so that scene of the pathology residents, (one of which was Ed Harris) discussing 'complete squash rot' and 'total gomer' to describe their autopsy patients was a bit of comic relief for this viewer. If this film had been made about thirty years earlier, you might even have seen them lighting up a smoke as they went about their business.

When a young female doctor (Geneviève Bujold) notices an unnatural amount of comas occurring in her hospital she uncovers a horrible conspiracy.Maybe I am just too young, but I think of Michael Crichton as really blossoming in the 1990s. He had "ER", he had "Jurassic Park" and "Congo". It seemed like the height of his career. And yet, here we have 1978, he is already directing a very strong thriller. Maybe not well remembered compared to his other projects, but you still have a great movie with Michael Douglas in a big supporting role. (Bujold, though not as big of a name, has at least as distinguished a career.) "Coma" was Tom Selleck's first theatrical appearance. He would later work with Crichton again in the 1984 sci-fi thriller "Runaway". Composer Jerry Goldsmith would also work with Crichton on "Runaway", contributing his first--and only--all-electronic score.

it is demonstration of a cinema fashion - conspiracies, fight against the system, slices of paranoia.in same measure, it is a splendid example of great acting. in fact, that is its virtue - the performance of Genevieve Bujold, the work of Michael Douglas, the levels of Richard Widmark role. a film who, without at whole convincing, impress. like an old story and the secret is manner to use fear, to give nuances to atmosphere - the hall of Jefferson Institute is memorable - to construct details who remembers better crime or thriller movies. a film who remains, after years, a classic. not only for artistic merits but for the strange links between yesterday and today. same suspicions, same cynicism of power levels, same need of heroes for the conquest of truth.

Based on Robin Cook's novel, adapted and directed by author Michael Crichton, this hospital thriller has Genevieve Bujold and Michael Douglas as doctors and intimates who become involved in an apparent conspiracy after a series of mysterious deaths plague their hospital. Though Bujold tries to convince her boss(played by Richard Widmark) of her concerns, he just says that its all just unfortunate coincidences, though she remains unconvinced, and as it turns out, with good reason...High concept thriller about unethical surgery and the value of human life wrapped up in a vast conspiracy thriller fails to come off, though it has an interesting premise, there is little interest in Bujold's character, and the film remains an unconvincing potboiler. Too bad.