Awakenings

Review: Awakenings takes place in a Bronx mental hospital and is based on actual events. Robin Williams (Fisher King, Dead Poets Society) plays the newly hired doctor, who like the patients who are catatonic, is shutoff, by his own shyness and inexperience. Robert DeNiro (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Deer Hunter, Godfather II), is absolutely incredible as a grown man with a childs personality which "awakens" and soon deteriorates. DeNiro, proving once again he is one of the greatest actors alive, leaves it all out there and was rewarded with yet another Oscar nomination. The movie is philosophical on many levels...is it better to remain hopeless or to be given hope and then lose it again? . -Review by Aaron Caldwell