12 Hours to Live

John Carl Lowman (Kevin Durand) is a killer on the run. He has committed six bank robberies and killed a federal agent. He carjacks a car in the woods and takes diabetic teenager Amy Kennedy (Brittney Wilson) as his hostage. FBI Agent Megan Saunders (Ione Skye) takes on the case to hunt down Lowman who killed her partner. She finds that Amy needs an insulin injection in less than 12 hours or else she'll die.

The premise is a bland Lifetime movie retread. I like Kevin Durand. He plays a good psychopath. Ione Skye is an acceptable FBI agent, but she doesn't have the powerful presence needed to lead. The girl Brittney Wilson has limited acting skills. The writing lacks pace and intensity. The style and direction is strictly TV-movie level. There isn't really anything to recommend here.

Let me first say that LMN movies are my guilty pleasure. I enjoy them for the cheese. In fact, the cheesier, the better. They don't have to make sense at all. As long as they are over the top and filled with scandalous plot lines, I will forgive cheap productions.

That being said... This film's screenwriter must not have anyone with Diabetes in their life or have known anyone. Type 1 Diabetes can be extraordinarily dangerous but not in the way it is depicted in this film. I have yet to see a realistic portrayal except in my own film I made. This isn't a plug, I'm not leaving my website, I just had to write about the laughable depiction in this otherwise cheesy LMN goodness.

Yes, the script for "12 Hours to Live" is patched together Frankenstein-style from some of the oldest thriller tropes in history, but if you can get past that and some hideously over-directed flashbacks, the main part of this film is quite good. The plotting is coherent and believable, the human drama genuinely touching and the characters are multidimensional. Even the villain evokes pity and pathos instead of just being a stick-figure menace. The acting is also excellent, with Ione Skye as the heroine (an FBI agent with a personal as well as a professional interest in catching the bad guy) and Kevin Durand as the villain (a psychopathic criminal specializing in bank robberies and not sure himself, as he tells us in the film, why he does what he does) standing out. This one is well worth watching and several cuts above the Lifetime TV-movie norm for this genre.

Similar to what others have said, the plot had a promise at the beginning but fizzles out badly, as only a Lifetime movie can do. Contrived with the all-to-predictable Lifetime redemption ending is too much to handle.

Ione Skye gives an absolutely wooden performance, mostly running around in her FBI baseball cap trying to prove her worth to the Lifetime stock evil-man character played by Kim Coates as another FBI agent. I was waiting for Ione Skye to do the Charlies' Angel shake of the hair before kneeling down with pistol drawn and yelling, "Freeze!" While easy on the eyes, Ione Skye is a terrible actress, at least in this vehicle.

Michael Moriarity's cameo is absolutely meaningless. It was as if the producers added the character so they could have his name on the credits. Hey, it worked as I only watched via "On Demand" because of his name.

Kevin Durand gives a credible performance as the bad guy, although the bad plot makes even his overall performance mediocre. Brittney Wilson is hard to like as the kidnapping victim, but she and the other actors weren't given a viable script... or direction... or much of anything else but a typical Lifetime formula B movie.

Watch only if you have nothing else to watch.

In Belgarde County, in Illinois, the wanted criminal John Carl Lowman (Kevin Durand) runs out gas in an isolated area; he carjacks a car with a couple and kidnaps the diabetic teenager Amy Kennedy (Brittney Wilson). The FBI Agent Megan Saunders (Ione Skye), whose partner and lover was killed by Lowman a couple of years ago in a bank heist, assumes the investigation and finds that Amy needs insulin injection in less than 12 hours, otherwise she will die. However, when her superior arrives in the location, he dismisses Megan since she is haunted by her fail in the past. But she seeks out her absent father to ask for some advice to help her to find Amy while the time is ticking.

"12 Hours to Live" has a promising beginning with an intriguing situation. However, the unrealistic and commercial resolution of the plot is weak and full of clichés. The flawed and annoying screenplay has a repetitive flashback with the shooting where Megan's partner is killed. Further, I do not know why this movie is dubbed in English, and the emotionless voices are too artificial and not synchronized with the movements of the lips. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "12 Horas Para Viver" ("12 Hours to Live")