Bruce Willis has been accused of sleepwalking through his DTV movies for years. In Trauma Center, he plays a character named “Wakes”. He doesn’t exactly resuscitate his career with this performance, but he does seem a little more spry than usual, especially in his first scene. He must’ve known he was gonna have to match the energy of the other big name in the cast. Now Bruce has worked with some legends over the years. Samuel L. Jackson. Sylvester Stallone. Arnold Schwarzenegger. These guys are the GOATs. This one has The GOOT. That’s right, we’re talking about Steve Guttenberg! Unfortunately, Guttenberg is barely in it, so forget I mentioned it, okay?
Willis stars as a detective whose partner was killed by some crooked cops. The cops also manage to wing a coffeeshop waitress (Nicky Whelan) who is sent to the titular establishment to heal from her wounds. Bruce knows the corrupt cops will eventually come after her, so he stashes her away in a floor that’s under renovation. Dumb plot circumstances (and Bruce’s conflicting acting schedule) mean he has to leave her all alone, and predictably, when the bad guys come looking for her, she must try to survive the night alone.
Trauma Center kind of feels like a loose remake of Halloween 2. Instead of having an injured woman being chased around a half-empty hospital by a masked maniac, it’s an injured woman being chased around a half-empty hospital by a couple of dirty cops. By having the movie take place in a deserted wing of the hospital, it saves money on pesky things that eat up a low budget thriller’s budget like extras, set decorators, and lighting personnel. It also saves money on Bruce’s salary as he pretty much disappears halfway through. Even though he seems mostly awake in this one, it feels closer to one of the recent Seagal movies as his dialogue is sometimes poorly looped and/or done by someone else. It also doesn’t help that the two cop villains are way below standard issue, barely memorable, and hardly menacing.
As bare bones as much of Trauma Center is, it does contain at least one cool moment where it threatens to kick into gear. That moment occurs when our heroine booby traps a door handle with a defibrillator to shock her would-be attacker, Home Alone-style. If only she used it on the screenplay. Maybe then she could’ve brought the movie back to life.
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