Downtime

When police psychologist Rob is called to a run-down and near empty council tower block he (sort of) helps to rescue Chrissy from an attempted suicide. However the media spotlight temporarily placed on those that live in the squalid and crime-infested environment brings the yobbish actions of the teenage Jacko to the fore – not something he likes and he immediately stamps his authority back onto the flats. Rob however, can't stop thinking about Chrissy and returns to the flats to see her again, which is probably not that good an idea.

The idea seems simple enough and, although on a bigger budget and with guns the claustrophobic setting of a tower block (of sorts) worked well in Die Hard. However the problems in Downtime are far too great to overcome – the weak characters, the lack of pace, the simplicity of the plot and the generally average writing. The film looks good with the grimy dankness of a council tower block but other than that it is sorely lacking in most areas. The plot creates some tense moments but mostly it stops and starts, to the detriment of the film; generally the story doesn't work as an idea and lacks the sort of tension it needs. Likewise the contrast between the visual style and the main characters doesn't work – the flirting between Chrissy and Rob might have worked in a big silly action movie but with such grim "reality" all around it just doesn't ring true and neither of them are any good as characters. The rest of the block's inhabitants are also weak and they contribute to the lack of involvement I felt in the story.

The cast try hard but they can't really get the tone of the film any better than the director or writer. McGann is OK but he is a bit too annoying to lead the film. Lynch has energy but her constant swearing and the lack of "reality" in her character means that she doesn't fit that well – in another film she would have been the best thing but here she is just part of the problem. Graham and his gang are off-the-shelf clichés without any real value other than plot devices while the rest of the cast are OK in filler roles.

Overall a fairly average film at best. It has some tense moments but the whole thing lacks consistency across the characters, the action and the whole tone. It probably does enough to distract but very little of it seems to fit together convincingly and I'd lost interest in it long before the silly and dull hospital denouncement.

Downtime is not for anyone who is afraid of lifts. The claustrophobic atmosphere in this film is the best thing about it. In fact, I've used lifts all my life without giving them a second thought, but even I found myself taking the stairs for a month or two after watching this.

The story features an educated police negotiator and a foul-mouthed working class mother on the brink of suicide. They have virtually nothing in common, but one evening they find themselves trapped in an elevator. To complicate matters further, some troublesome kids start a fire in the same tower block which rapidly gets out of control.

There is an unconvincing love element to the story which makes parts of it hard to swallow. However, I was prepared to forgive the film for this unlikely plot development because as mentioned before the closed-in atmosphere is brilliantly captured. However, near the end the film does something truly unforgivable. For no reason at all, it suddenly brings in a half-hearted revenge subplot which belongs in another movie and uses it to end a film which has already reached a satisfying conclusion. The sheer stupidity of having a film set almost entirely in a lift suddenly switch location to a hospital room, with an angry father waving a rifle around, utterly undermines the good work that has gone before. Such a shame! Surely the two protagonists should have escaped from the lift and that should have been that.

Worth seeing, then, but it's best if you switch it off about ten minutes from the end.

I've waited to watch this for a long time . Round about the same time Paul McGann was cast as The Doctor in the American DOCTOR WHO television movie it was announced he'd be starring in a British DIE HARD type of thriller called DOWNTIME . That's what the exact phrase was " A British version of DIE HARD " and being a DOCTOR WHO fan there's nothing I and many other fans would have liked more seeing a former DOCTOR WHO being as famous as Bruce Willis . I heard absolutely nothing more about DOWNTIME until it was broadcast on Channel 4 a couple of years ago which I somehow managed to miss . I didn't see it until last night and to be blunt I didn't miss much

The fact that it's set in Newcastle and filmed in Liverpool ( Let this be the final word on settings and locations ) sums up the whole movie - It's something it's not in the same way Newcastle is not really Newcastle and this is not really a British DIE HARD , it's a love story except for much of the running time the movie meanders in lots of directions . For a few minutes it thinks it's a crime thriller , then decides it's going to be a kitchen sink drama , then gets up on its soap box to scream what a terrible place modern Britain is . Maybe an appropriate title for the movie might have been DIE HARD : TRY HARDER AT KEEPING A SCRIPT FOCUSED ?

It's not just the lack of focus that's a problem ( Though that's the main one ) it's other things too . Can anyone buy into Rob falling in love with Chrissy ? Neither can I . And I notice this is a French co-production . Perhaps I would have understood the dialogue better if it was spoken in fluent French because I had a serious problem making out the broad Geordie accents . Oh and unsurprisingly the film gets comes to a halt which led me to believe the last ten minutes ended up on the cutting room floor

DOWNTIME is a very ironic film since its often revolves a lift . Lifts can only go up or down but this movie moves in so many unlikely directions

Paul McGann plays an asthmatic police shrink with a fear of heights (and sore feet) who saves a woman from committing suicide. He then decides to ask her out on a date, but they -and her little son- end up in a collapsing elevator in the woman's apartment building (located in a poor district of Liverpool, where everything looks like something out of an Aki Kaurismäki-film). An odd mix of social comment with echoes of -would you believe- "The Towering Inferno"! In the end we don't really care what happens to any of the characters. All though you might ask yourself why the buildings sick and demented juveniles (who plays a major role in the elevator-incident) suddenly disappear for a major portion of the film.

This movie fascinated me for reasons other reviewers have mentioned. How on earth was such a camel created? DownTime was funded independently and mainly by (UK TV's) Channel 4 who are developing a fine tradition in backing wonderful films. Ken Loach meets Towering Inferno? Well you may not agree with Ken Loach's politics (I do) but he has a coherent world view. "Social comment"? What social comment? Poor caretakers are to blame? Just to locate a movie in a working class area of NEWCASTLE (not Liverpool!) means nothing. In such settings, unless writers suggest hope or an alternative then inferred conclusions are likely to be reactionary: the poor are to blame for their own misery, working-class youth are demons who must be crushed (as Jack Straw agrees). The suggestion that Susan can do well for herself by dating middle-class Rob is repulsive. I personally thought Susan Lynch acted better than Paul McGann - but who cares? I thought McCann stunk. OK he got dealt a bad hand: the script is so poor. However, I do not put this down to his character being a "ditz" - so what! This is when ACTING is called for. The weird thing is that the script occasionally suggests that the writer might have come into contact with humans. That's what is so perplexing about this film: the occasional suggestion that something better could have been created. I can only explain this movie as a cowardly retreat in face of criticism from the philistine right-wing on what films are funded. Happy to discuss ...