Fall Time - Blutiger Herbst

I didn't know what to think at first because there were so many nutty things going on in this juicy little film. Yea, now that I read some of the other reviews, the homoerotic thing fits. I wondered if I was imagining things, or what. All the touching, close contact,. . . is he going to kiss him?! Mickey Rourke was amazing! And he had the best lines many of which were sheer poetry/philosophy/Rourke. I was sure he wrote the script, but no. Baldwin was also in excellent form. Actually they all were. Sheryl Lee was a riot having fun with the role -almost too much fun, as the clever "girl who got away." See the film!!! Oh, and the Mom who was always baking pies -too funny. Not a word from her, but she stole the scenes from the ranting Dad.

Mickey Rourke and Stephen Baldwin are about to pull off a small-town bank robbery. Unfortunately for their careful plans, three local youngsters have decided to do a fake robbery of the bank as a prank. Baldwin and Rourke subject them to sadistic and even sexual punishment.

It's an interesting central story, and the performances are good. However, the film makers have decided to set it in the 1950s and excoriate the entire decade. They also include several dozen shots of a woman baking an apple pie, and three children -- presumably the youngsters some years earlier -- playing around a swimming hole. Clearly intended to add depth to whatever the message this film tries to offer -- something like "don't try to rob a bank as a joke, because it probably won't turn out well" -- this movie would have turned out a lot better without that.

I recently rewatched Fall Time (1995) on Tubi. The storyline follows a group of kids in a small Midwestern town who plan a fake kidnapping as a prank. Unfortunately for them, their timing coincides with a real bank heist, and some of the kids end up as hostages. Can they find a way out of their predicament?

Directed by Paul Warner (Portraits in Dramatic Time), the film stars Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), David Arquette (Scream), Stephen Baldwin (The Usual Suspects), and Jason London (Dazed and Confused).

This is one of those films where you're glad you're not in the situation but can't help watching to see how it unfolds. The characters and circumstances are well-established and engaging, with a cast that fits the roles perfectly. The hostage situation balances humor and intensity, with one slapping scene that cracked me up. The plot is clever, full of twists and turns, keeping you guessing about how things will resolve. The final shootout is excellent, and the ending is a blindside, though I'm still on the fence about how I feel about it.

Overall, Fall Time is a unique and entertaining bank heist movie that's worth a watch. I'd rate it a 6.5/10.

Rebellious post-high school buddies Tim (Jason London), Dave (David Arquette), and Joe (Jonah Blechman) are in the middle of their last summer together. Tim is off to college in the fall, and wherever the other two wind up, it will not be in the same place he will be. So the three of them, the bored threesome decide to pull of their most elaborate prank of all time. The plan is simple. Tim, all decked out in a nice suit that makes him slightly more than conspicuous in a small town like Caledonia, Wisconsin, will stand on a street corner near the bank, while the other two pull up fast in their black Buick (stolen from Dave's cruel father) and pretend, with blanks, to gun him down in the street, toss him into the trunk and speed away. After this reports about the Buick will be all over the news, and Dave's father will have a heavy dose of explaining to do. But while they plan the lark, ex-cons Florence (Mickey Rourke), and Leon (Stephen Baldwin) are planning to rob the very same bank. When the boys mistakenly abduct Leon (who is dressed in a suit similar to Tim's), and in effect, foil the crime, the stronger Florence immediately hunts down the suspicious Tim, and strong-arms him into assisting in the heist without Leon. Leon, meanwhile, once out of the trunk, easily detains Dave and Joe, and begins a paranoid investigation of their true motives before forcing Dave to reel off a conspiracy tale about himself and Florence, exactly what the very edgy Leon wants to hear. Leon, who is shown through his homosexual relationship with Florence (which began while the two served time) as being subservient and pliant, explodes when given the opportunity to call the shots for the two young boys, and becomes unhinged to the tune of torturous interrogation scenes that are almost too emotionally painful to watch. What follows is a violent, icy depiction of loss of innocence in the Eisenhower America, which ends the only way it can, with bodies on the floor. Though the film, made in 1995, was denied a theatrical release by co-stars bickering over billing, director Paul Warner spins a tightly wound tale of a adolescent joy-ride that goes awfully wrong. And perhaps the most interesting spin on the script is the parallel between the subservient relationship of Leon to Florence to the hero-worship Joe holds for Dave, and even paralleling Leon's treatment of the boys with the relationship of Dave to his father. This amounts to a perverse little twist of script that Freudians would love, where the two criminals do serve to provide a sort of perverse fathering of the children. The young cast is outstanding, exuding the requisite disbelief and innocence we expect from these boys. A particular standout is Arquette, who I previously did not feel could act his way out of a paper bag. Mickey Rourke is absolutely chilling as Florence, and Baldwin gives perhaps even a better performance than he did in The Usual Suspects, an absolutely brilliant turn as the explosive Leon. In all, Fall Time is a very good movie that snuck through the cracks, and is well worth a look if you can find a copy.

Ambitious in its use of Gay leads (no overtones here, completely in your face), period setting, and crazy goings on. The Movie starts sort of weak with overacting by the three teenagers wildly flailing about and trash talking incessantly. But once our two ferry-land psychos enter, the thing sort of becomes entertaining in a low rent hoodlum kind of way.

Although it goes to some length to be 1950's kitsch some of the props look like modern thrift shop and antique store borrowings as they are worn out and do distract somewhat from believability. But that is a minor quibble because things do perk up and turn into some fun.

The convoluted plot and some of the explanations of some of the behavior develop confusion, it is the violence and the Gay behavior of the characters that bring this home with a different feel and is a near winner despite some of its missteps. This is one of Stephen Baldwin's best performances and Mickey Rourke is, well the always interesting Mickey Rourke.