Countdown - Der Tod fährt mit

That movie got all in it ! Action , Thrill and the acting is very good for a TV movie. All in all nice movie for the cold days comming. Hope they do more nice movies like that on TV. So if u haven't seen it GET IT !

The only thing worth watching about this movie is Kimberley Davies, and that's just looking at her, not her acting (she can't act - but then again, that only puts her on par with the rest of the cast of this shocker).

Mmm. Should have given it 1/10 instead of 2. Certainly the special effects aren't even worth that.

Read a good book, watch something else, eg. flies crawling up the wall, or maybe grass growing, or photos of Kimberley, or some of the wonderful non-action-genre movies that have come out of Australia in the last twenty years.

One day Australians will realise that they make great intelligent movies without trying to match Hollywood for action blockbusters which they will never be able to do. Until then we are stuck with these occasional misguided unsuccessful forays.

Contemplating this movie's showing on overseas TV networks makes me cringe as an Australian.

Don't bother with this one.

Basically what we have here is a bargain basement action thriller set mainly on a train and utilising numerous bits of other film's scripts (spot the photocopied plots from Under Siege 2, Death Train and numerous others here).

Add every cliché in the book, some truly awful acting, standard issue one liners that don't work, various cardboard characters, the token eye candy and a cast that seemed to be only in this as they desperately needed the money to a budget of about ten dollars and this is the mess you wind up with.

The locomotives acted better than the cast, probably because they did not have to recite the cheesy clichéd dialogue that basically ran from start to finish, it is little wonder that one comment from an Australian (where this Antipodean codswallop was made and is set) wanted to hang his head in shame that they where producing stuff like this.

Stick to Mad Max films please.......

For every Natalie Imbruglia there are 10 Sarah Vandenberghs; there's a carload of Rachel Blakelys for every Kylie Minogue. What I'm getting at is that post-"Neighbours" life can be a sorry one - consider Kimberley Davies, aka Annalise. Now back on her home turf after an unsuccessful turn in the US (chiefly in "Pacific Palisades," a series from Aaron Spelling where she played a sexy real estate agent which was so unsuccessful that the producers drafted in Joan Collins - now THAT'S desperate), she's stuck in stuff like "Seconds to Spare." And she still can't act, but fortunately she's still gorgeous, which is one of the few things this Australian-American TV movie has going for it.

To be honest, no one has the right to expect much from a movie where the names "Carlton America" and "Antonio Sabato Jr." appear in the opening credits; ASJr plays an ex-DEA agent chasing a criminal to Australia, who's fallen in league with a band of eco-terrorists who steal some canisters of nerve gas to make a statement against the Australian government's stance on toxic dumping, and hijack a train in order to get their point across. "Die Hard" on a train it's not (that was "Under Siege 2," anyway), in more ways than one; the movie not only lacks real suspense but has villains who are ultimately and infinitely more interesting than our plank-esque hero - the leader of the treehuggers (Kate Beahan) doesn't want to use violence to win, which puts her in conflict with the main villain (Jerome Ehlers, clearly enjoying himself).

Chugging along at a pace considerably slower than the train, with a lacklustre score and effects work, and dire acting and dialogue ("All the while she was doing my root canal, my husband was..."), there's not a surprise to be had in the entire movie - with the exception of the name of co-executive producer Sabato Jr's production company (Namtab Productions Inc. - though given his uselessness, Etimtab Productions Inc. would have been more appropriate). Unless Nine Network Australia wanted to prove that the US doesn't have a monopoly on making naff actioners, there's not much of a point to this; and unless you want to see Nick Tate in something even sillier than "Space: 1999," there's no reason to watch.

Kimberley Davies still fills out a white T-shirt wonderfully, however. (Okay, there's at least two reasons to watch.)

SECONDS TO SPARE

Aspect ratio: 1.78:1

Sound format: Stereo

After serving time in prison on a trumped-up charge of corruption, an ex-DEA officer (Antonio Sabato Jr.) travels to Australia in search of the man responsible for his ordeal (Jerome Ehlers), a rogue CIA agent who has hijacked a passenger train and is threatening to detonate a nerve bomb in the heart of Sydney...

Antonio Sabato Jr. is the perfect action hero: He's dark and handsome, and he can kick butt with the best of 'em. The only 'trouble' is his chest - he's got the best pecs in the business, and his costume designer knows it. When he wears a tight-fitting T-shirt (as he does frequently throughout this opportunistic mini-epic), or - better still - when he isn't wearing a shirt at all (there's only one gratuitous 'topless' scene, but welcome nonetheless!), some viewers will be hopelessly distracted by the size, shape and all-round magnificence of those plate-sized pectorals. Thankfully, Sabato wears another (loose fitting) shirt just long enough for Brian Trenchard-Smith's ho-hum actioner to emerge into some kind of focus, and while there's nothing new in either the script (by Trenchard-Smith and Dennis Pratt) or direction, the movie contains enough explosions and punch-ups to satisfy the target audience. Former soap star Kimberley Davies (sporting a rather magnificent chest of her own!) is Sabato's potential love interest, prone to falling into the wrong hands and being rescued by her hunky would-be boyfriend, while Kate Beahan suffers gracefully as Ehler's naive associate, a good-hearted soul who realizes - too late! - the hijack will end in disaster for millions of innocent people. Professional in all departments, the movie is no more than a routine time-waster, but Sabato's pumped-up torso is worth endless repeat viewings. Drool, slobber...