The Minute You Wake up Dead

Lazy effort to go with predictable and bad dialog. Morgan Freeman is simply too old to play the same character he has been playing for 40 years at this point in his career. The overall premise looks promising but it tries really hard to be serious while everyone is phoning it in. Jaimee Alexander is at least beautiful to look at but there is not enough of her in this to make it worth watching. I wanted to like this but it just goes from bad to worse to why would they waste time and money on this? I could literally see toupee glue in one of the early scenes where Cole Hauser is driving. I recommend avoiding this movie.

The Minute You Wake Up Dead is directed by Michael Mailer and stars Cole Hauser, Jamie Alexander and Morgan Freeman.

The plot of The Minute You Wake up Dead is driven primarily by the incompetence of its characters. There are plenty of alleged twists, based on a number of betrayals and hidden motives, in the screenplay by director Michael Mailer and Timothy Holland, but not a one of them seems logical or plausible unless one takes into account that everyone in the movie is incapable of basic logical thinking.

Cole Hauser can't seem to pick a good role outside of Yellowstone, Jamie Alexander deserves better then this and so does Morgan Freeman, the man is 80 years old he's probably close to retirement at this point go make some Oscar bait movies or something instead of forgettable and bad DTV movies like this.

Hopefully after the first 20 minutes will be the minute you wake up and realize its a cash grab for the actors, on a limited shooting schedule and a bad script.

Why Morgan Freeman put his name to this, I will never know. He was barely in it but when he was, there was a distinct lack of effort.

It was doing ok but as soon as it started to get bad, it went downhill fast. From half way through, it felt like something that lost investment and interest from those producing it, and those acting it. Almost like from half way, they'd all got a bit fed up and decided to hurry it along so they could go and get on with their day jobs.

Some of the acting was awful. The character who worked in the kitchen, had me checking online to see if it was a comedy. His acting was dire and he felt like a children's film baddie. I couldn't bring myself to watch the last 10 minutes.

I watched it on a plane where I didn't have access to IMDB, otherwise I'd probably wouldn't. But I liked the trailer. This a classic B class cinema with beginner actors learning the ropes on how to deliver their lines (apart for Freeman). I refuse to believe majority of staff had any acting experience. The dialogs are cliche and spoken without conviction. It reminded me the "straight to "VHS" 1990 movies at times. But I feel the actors were let down by both the writer and director who allowed for the likes of "you don't mess with old Berta" being said over and over. It's hilariously bad at times.

However - criticism aside, I liked the fast pace and the guesswork what's gonna happen next. It was a bit of "Knives Out" style with unveiling mystery. If you're looking for an easy to follow thriller with hot actress and twists, go for it. It now makes me want to shoot a movie myself, clearly you don't need any acting or directing abilities whatsoever if you have the funding from the studio.

You can tell this was a newb filmmaker entry, and there's nothing wrong with that, because they have to start somewhere. However, rookie mistakes aside, it showed promise, but in the third act the writing became lazy and sloppy. It started off plausible, and as the twists started, it became a little more exciting, but then it was one plot hole after another, and then the laughable shake your head moments took away from the decent set-up. The casting and performances were good enough - especially considering the novice cast directing, and you know most of this film's low budget went to Morgan Freeman. The cinematography was decent as was the score. Had the writing been more cohesive and smarter after the mid-way mark, I would've easily given this a 7/10.