The 5:48

Ivory's only feature film to date (1999) not produced by his business partner Ismail Merchant, this short suspense picture was adapted by the playwright Terrence McNally from a story by John Cheever and commissioned by New York's Channel 13 TV. Hypocrites abound in Merchant Ivory's work, but the unvarnished cruelty which runs through the character of John Blake (Luckinbill), the ad-man held at gunpoint on his train journey home to Shady Hill, Westchester County, by his wronged secretary (Hurt), may come as a shock to those who've grown accustomed to the elegant subtleties of Ruth Jhabvala's MIP scripts. Made back-to-back with The Europeans.