Anatomie

Review by MADELEINE SWAIN

It's rare for Hollywood to do a better job with a given subject than Europe, but this thriller about secret sects of immoral doctors and their ghoulish experiments was more successfully covered in predecessors such as Michael Crichton's Coma (1978).

Although it promises much in the beginning - especially in the central casting of Run Lola Run's Franka Potente - and features early spine-chilling scenes, Anatomie degenerates into a simple-minded "chase 'em around the corridors brandishing a scalpel" sort of affair.

Potente is wasted as the med student whose suspicions of dirty dealings are confirmed.

Still worth seeing, if only for the jaw-dropping scene where a guy wakes up on the slab to find he's been turned into the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.

Anatomie
Rated: MA.
Australian release date: January.
Australian distributor: Columbia Tristar.
Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky.
Cast: Franka Potente, Benno Fürmann, Anna Loos, Sebastian Blomberg.
Running time: 99 minutes.
Website: www.anatomie-der-film.de