5ive Days to Midnight

After a fashion, I really enjoyed this miniseries from 2004, "Five Days to Midnight," starring Timothy Hutton, Randy Quaid, Kari Matchett, Hamish Linklater, Angus Macfayden, and Gage Golightly.

Hutton plays physics professor J.T. Neumeyer who, while visiting his wife's grave on the anniversary of her death, finds a briefcase with his name on it. Inside are news clippings that talk about his death five days from now. At first, he thinks it's a joke but ultimately believes it was sent by his brilliant but eccentric student Carl (Linklater) and perhaps is not a joke. With an 11-year-old daughter to care for, Neumeyer isn't about to go down without a fight.

Complications abound, including a secret his girlfriend (Matchett) has been keeping, and his brother-in-law's financial difficulties. Then there's the implication of actually changing the future - which Carl warns him can't happen.

Quantum physics is extremely interesting to me -- parallel universes and the like, time travel - unfortunately, there was not as much emphasis on this in the plot; instead, the focus seemed to be on making it into a detective story. Less interesting.

My big problem was the way the discs were set up. I watched the first disc, returned it to Netflix, got the second, and immediately realized I hadn't seen one episode. I found out I wasn't the only one this happened to - the discs separate the episodes, one hour each, rather than one episode, two hours.

Timothy Huttton was excellent, and all the acting was good - Hamish Linklater is always wonderful -- and all of the acting is good. Because of Hutton, you really get involved in the story and in this man's plight.

If you watch this, you'll have questions - there is an excellent post on the message board that explains it all.

Can we change the future, and if we do, what are the implications? Are the past, the present, and the future occurring at the same time? If we try to change it, are we doomed to the same fate even if the circumstances change? Movies have been asking these questions for years. "Five Days to Midnight" also deals with the future sending us messages. It's all fascinating -- I just wish there had been more of it.

I thought that I had a better review for this mini-series, but it looks like I may have shut it away in the trash vault. So, for just this one I am going to give you the short, short version of what I witnessed. 5ive Days to Midnight was one of those classic mini-series that probably did very well while on television in keeping the suspense high and the anticipation even higher, but when it transferred onto DVD it didn't succeed as well. When one has the opportunity to watch this series from beginning to end within the course of one day, the excitement and momentum slowly decreases. Let me be more exact.

The first three episodes were great. It was this beautifully mixed bag of drama and sci-fi that I know the Sci-Fi channel has a firm grip on. It kept me guessing and wondering what would happen next. I couldn't quite figure out exactly how all the pieces were going to fit together and it was enjoyable, then you put the second disc in and watch the final two episodes and everything going for this film goes down the toilet. The final two episodes are nothing but filler and the ironically planned confusing ending. I felt that these final two episodes just did not react well with the first three, there seemed to be something genuinely missing from all of this. It was as if the creators had the horse running at full speed at first, then allowed it to gallop into the final lap. It lost momentum, speed, and thrill when the second disc hit my DVD player.

The acting was decent with Quaid proving why the "TV" niche is his best friend. Hutton could have done a bit better, portraying this struggling victim to this predestined crime, but instead I think he realized this was "television" and went with some sub-par skills. While the acting was just average all around, I was o.k. with that, it was the story that I was hoping to get most of my strength from. Sadly, the story was good, but not great. There were huge, gaping plot holes that just were never covered or corrected. When you are doing a time traveling film like this, you need this to make a coherent statement. It is like writing a paper without using any punctuation, you don't know where to stop or end and it ends up a jumbled mess. That is what happened with the final two episodes, the jumbled mess caught up to the creators and there was only one way to stop it … clichés and unoriginality.

Overall, I was impressed to begin this series, but by the end, I had lost it completely. The fourth day is nothing but filler, and that set the mood well off for the final day. What began as this very interesting time travel drama/murder/mystery eventually turned into a regular program that you could find on any station. Something happened, and as we the viewers may never know, those involved do. I suggest to everyone checking out the first disc while leaving the second behind. If you need to know how it ends, forget about it. The first three days will leave a better taste in your mouth than the final two days, and overall you will feel better (even if you don't know how it ends!)

Grade: *** out of *****

Yes, we watched enthralled; at least the last episodes. We felt it was too much special effects, all too moody music, and way too much time wasting melodrama. Knowing we had a four hour stretch to weary our way through, we took our time until we knew we were near the denouement, at which point we watched more closely and could then feel the excitement building.

But remember: it's television. Television is made in an entirely different way, no matter the artistic ambitions. This would never work in a watered down two hour format at the theatre - it just plays as television. If you're all right with television, fine; if television leaves you flat and wanting to see real cinema instead, this 'movie' will leave you flat too.

The device of this movie demands a 'conceit' - and a consequent suspension of disbelief - that you either buy into or else you won't like the whole thing much.

After a night of sleep we woke mostly feeling we'd wasted our time. It's not so much the movie makers' fault - remember: it's television.

Timothy hutton plays physics professor JT Neumeyer who while visiting his wife's grave discovers a thin silver brief case.

He opens it and discovers a group of files showing pictures of his death and newspapers clippings.

First declaring this as a practical joke, the events in the files play out slowly and now convinced that he'll die in five days, tries to find a way to prevent himself from dying and must change his destiny.

The concept is great despite being a bit derivative, and there's plenty of room for tension, suspense, and great bits on philosophy, but the screenwriters miss their chances.

The cast is comprised mostly of second rate actors with the exception of Hutton who tries his best at the lead role but ultimately fails towards the end of the film as he manages to go way over the top with his emotional scenes.

There's also Randy quaid who is quite bland and one-dimensional, and Angus McFayden who is the worst of the characters as the over the top mob boss Roy Bremmer. Watch for his really bad scenes as he attempts to inflict depth into his character but comes off as laughable.

Meanwhile the story has the ability to inject tension and sense of immediacy but all of it is loss in the bogged down story. Rambling and droning at some points it's difficult to understand why this couldn't have been a two hour film instead of a four parter.

There's also plenty of room for philosophy and the concept of destiny and fate towards death, but there's nothing here as the story is mostly comprised of uneventful occurances, slim character development, and so much dialogue.

While the film is engrossing at the beginning, it's ultimately lost halfway through as the plot is segued into the benign plot featuring McFayden which takes away from the actual reason why we're watching.

"Stay tuned for the shocking last minutes to 5 Days to Midnight" the Sci-Fi channel boasts which never usually works on me but I was rather interested to see where this was developing. But, unfortunately it was all just hype. I was expecting that Neumeyer's daughter would accidentally shoot him causing his death, and that we never got to see who sent the briefcase, but it's all pretty much explained in the end and nothing of the sort happens.

I wanted an ironic, witty, and shocking ending beneath the muddled plot and droning dialogue, but alas we're not given anything but an obligatory and rather disappointing happy ending.

Decent performances, a great concept but falls apart halfway through becoming routine and cliche. The writers never give this story and concept a chance to spread its wings and just keep it down to mediocre level.

** out of **** stars.

My overall reaction is that I feel like I completely wasted five hours of my life watching this miniseries. While there were a few red flags in the beginning, the writing seemed to be carrying the movie. First, the red flags: the director had an extremely annoying habit of throwing in slow motion in places where it was completely out of place. Actually, there's almost never a reason for slow motion. Directors and writers don't normally write "This scene is done in slow motion" into the script. If the action in the take appears to be incredibly lame during the editing, they'll try a slow motion effect before throwing the scene away. So the high frequency of slow motion shots is a give away that the director is a hack.

** Spoiler Ahead **

Other than the director's attempt to sabotage the movie, the writing was very good for the first 4 hours and 50 minutes. It wasn't typical Sci-Fi fare, but a seemingly well crafted murder mystery. The twist was that the victim was investigating his own murder. Not bad. But there was no mystery to the ending. It was the equivalent of having the cavalry ride in at the last minute, only dumber. There was no attempt to clean up the loose ends. No attempt to explain how the professor escaped his destiny. It might have been modestly satisfying if there was an attempt to explain how the future benefactor knew that a single bullet would be needed at the last moment.

Not since Steven King's "The Stand" was there a more disappointing ending to a promising story line.