Dead in a Heartbeat

The return of Judge Reinhold might have been a better title. We seldom see the one time 80's comedy king – and co-star of Beverly Hills Cop, so it's nice to see him carrying a reasonably entertaining movie.

Reinhold plays an unpaid bomb squad expert who stumbles upon a plot to blow up anything attached to a pacemaker. With the aid of a suspiciously coy and over-confident Doctor (Miller) the duo hunt down a mad bomber who has an obvious vendetta against someone in the medical profession.

Whilst Dead In A Heartbeat, is a lot lame, and a little oddball, the plot's so fresh and new that one can't helped but be engrossed in it. The idea of someone putting a bomb in pacemakers, is so preposterously absurd, that I guarantee most people will revel in the 90 odd minutes of thrills here. And it's nice to see Reinhold in a showy role for a change.

Granted, "Dead in a Heartbeat" (2002) is a made-for-television movie with fade out/fade in prompts for commercials, but.the script does include some entertaining elements. For one, Judge Reinhold plays an experienced explosives specialist / police lieutenant investigating some bizarre murders. Working with a cardiologist who installs pacemakers, Reinhold and his team sift through medical records to find the killer.

Add in mounting tensions - most involving worrisome countdowns - and possible romance and you have a decent storyline. But watch this one only if a Hallmark-style TV movie agrees with your viewing tastes.

I didn't have high expectations from this one. But i was wrong. Dead In A Heartbeat is a very good movie, considering it was made for tv only, with low budget and not too good actors.

The story is tempting, original and interesting. Yes, the script has some cliches, and yes, some lines are stupid, and yes, the actors do seem out of their place sometimes. But that doesn't change the overall feeling of a good movie. It's fast paced, original, well directed and well edited.

Vote: 7 out of 10.

Somewhere in the middle. The acting from both main characters are OK, Judge Reinhold is doing fine, and I also liked Fuvio Cecere as Berman. It's a mediocre TV-movie although, as it's way overpacked with clichés...too bad, it could have been better, as the acting is fine.

4/10

This is one of the most absurd movies I've ever seen. A madman who is going around placing bombs in pace makers, this movie combines the standard mad bomber movie with the standard medical chase movie and tosses in the cliche of the bad guy going after the family of the hero at the end.

The unique thing about this movie is that as bad as it is (and it is just wrong to make a movie like this) Judge Rinehold actually does one of his better acting jobs in this movie. (Imagine if Billy from Beverly Hills Cop 1 didn't go nuts and became a normal cop.)