Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

Nick of Time (1995)

Director: John Badham

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

No sooner has accountant Depp disembarked at the Los Angeles railway station than he's separated from his infant daughter and presented with a gun, a photograph and a schedule. If he hasn't killed the woman in the picture - Governor of California Marsha Mason - within the next 80 minutes, then he'll never see his child again. It's a nifty pretext for a nail-biting thriller, but even on this abbreviated timescale the movie nags at your credulity. Given that the conspiracy ripples out alarmingly wide, it seems improbable that head honcho Walken should have concocted quite such a whimsical plan, and it's a long wait before the impassive Depp takes any resolute action. Written by the prolific, old-fashioned Patrick Sheane Duncan, the film's passably ingenious, but director Badham fluffs its central gimmick, the notion that the action is played out, Rope-style, in real time, by cutting away from his hard-pressed protagonist at convenient intervals. Even so, it's not a bad effort. Badham's sub-De Palma, not Hitchcock, but he's still fractionally above average.

Author: TCh 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.