Colpo doppio

The minute I saw Patsy Kensit's lips, I knew I had seen her before. It was driving me crazy. I was thrown off by the Hungarian character she played. I have to admit that she was the only reason I watched this movie, and I wasn't disappointed.

She didn't give the full exposure reported in Angels and Insects or Shelter Island, but we did get the view we saw in Lethal Weapon 2 - I finally remembered that awesome performance as the South African secretary! Michael Biehn (Aliens, The Rock, Terminator 2: Judgment Day) was the simple watch repairer that didn't know who he was and why everyone was trying to kill him. He did OK, but Kensit stole the show. You've seen the basic script before in In the Line of Fire, done much better by Eastwood.

Blue, Brown Redd, Green, and Grey were a little over-the top and no match at all, but they provided some exciting moments.

I probably would have given it a higher rating had I just not felt that I had seen it all before.

This is a pretty crazy film that combines aspects of Sci-Fi, cybernetics, The Manchurian Candidate, and new world orders into a pastiche of overamped fights, chases and gratuitous gunplay. The performances aren't that bad but some scenes seem almost sped through with the need to quicken the pace and get to the meat of the film. Some decent special effects. Overall, if you see it in a vid store and the price is cheaper to buy it from the bargain bin than rental, go for it. Better yet, if it shows up on cable watch it rather than spend real money on it.

Well this movie started out fair-to-middlin. I rented it because Tracy Scoggins was in it and so was Patsy Kensit who looks remarkably like Elizabeth Hurley or even Scoggins on the back cover of the video...

But shortly it became painfully obvious that the writer and director, Avi Nesher, was still REALLY into the schlock gimmicks of bad 80s action films. The key things that ticked me off was the "blond timid psychoanalyst" (played by Patsy) who is supposedly an educated woman by the nature of her profession but consistently was instead the "helpless blond ditz" without a shred of common sense. Unfortunately Patsy's character ended up just being the weepy decoration on Biehn's arm who constantly got him into trouble by inadvertently letting the enemy know where he was.

The movie soon went to plain bad shlock complete with the requisite "crashing into Large Neon signs at the top of building" scene. I even picked up the box several times through scanning it closely for evidence of a production date in the early 80s but no, this was made in the early 90s.

The only redeeming features of this movie were Tracy Scoggins who was basically the only believeable aspect of the movie but unfortunately had only about 5 min total of screen time. I loved seeing her in the Cher type wigs in the "flashback scenes". The most memorable scene was her last screen appearance where Biehn is attempting to force her to make a call... She's been hit across the face hard with a chain and knocked down...her face is covered in blood but there are no tears... Not even after he shoots her in the leg. Instead, and this is what makes it memorable...she "pants" through the pain instead of the unbelieveable overused "stoicness" that seems to be a requirement of all such scenes.

I also liked just watching Patsy Kensit and Biehn on the screen. They made a beautiful pair on screen and Biehn kept making me look twice as his profile (esp when wet) closely resemembled that of my favorite B actor, Christopher Atkins. I've certainly rented and watched a lot of truly bad movies just to get more screentime of actors and actresses I like!

With elements from the many attempts of brainwashing by the US military we have here some action filled thriller from the point of view of one of the victims.

It was probably a story from the beginning with some time travel elements, as the amount of lives and resources to kill a medium level politician is absurd, unless he becomes very important in the future - but they had to cut out that part of the story for budget reason, but they kept the name of the movie.

With some popcorn and some friends - this is a great early 1990´s action/thriller movie to enjoy.

**SPOILERS** Living a quiet life in L.A as a mild mannered watch repair man Eddie Kaye, Michael Biehn, one evening becomes Superman when he rushes into a burning apartment building saving a mother and her infant from curtain death.

Eddie doesn't know it but he's really not Eddie Kaye he's Oliver Dykstra and at the same time he was supposed to be dead for years but a person watching the TV news that evening Col. Taylor, Richard Jordan, does. He's was the one who had Oliver brainwashed and given a new name and memory, as Eddie Kaye, and now realizing that he's still alive is responsible for Eddie's being terminated like he should have been years ago.

High powered action/thriller "Timebomb" lacks a cohesive storyline with Eddie on the run with pretty Dr. Anna Nolmar, Pasty Kensit, his psychoanalyst who he got to know while he was repairing her late fathers expensive watch. Always on the run throughout the film the couple are chased by Col.Taylor's mind-controlled goons from L.A to Mexico to Arizona an finally back to L.A at the Duke Hotel for the final showdown between Eddie and the entire Taylor goon squad.It turns out that Eddie, or Oliver Dykstra in an other life, couldn't be corrupted by Col. Taylor & Co. to murder innocent people who the Colonel and his bosses high in government feel are a threat to "National Security".

Discarted and thrown away in a garbage dump Eddie miraculously survived and lived a quite and uneventful life until he came to the rescue of the woman and child in that burning building and since then he life was never the same again. Escaping from Taylor's men to Mexico Eddie realizes why he's a marked man when he sees a newspaper headline about Dean Jordan, Harvey Fuller, who's running for Attoreny General of the United States. Eddie then realizes that that's the main reason that he's to be killed as soon as possible ;to stop him from preventing Jordan's assassination at the Duke Hotel that coming Sunday.

Better then average action sequences with a wild shoot-out in a darkened and almost deserted porno theater with the porn flick still being projected on the screen as the bullets are flying and bodies dropping, what was the projectionist doing? was he asleep or on his lunch break? The final scene at the Duke Hotel was really something to see with all the light shut off as the assassin team with infra-red eyeglasses zero in on the guest speaker, Dean Jordan, for the kill.

Eddie saves the day, and Dean Jordan's life, by taking on the entire hit-team and slugging it out with them in the lobby and on the roof of the hotel with L.A police detective Sanchez, Raymond St. Jacques, coming to Eddie's aid just in the nick of time. The movie did touch on things back in 1990 that are very real today about a out of control government feeling that it's above the law and can do no wrong. As long as it has the power to control and intimidate those who dare to criticize or expose it.

The one thing that really disappointed me more then anything else in the movie "Timebomb" was the fact that Robert Culp, who played L.A's communications chief Phllips, was given top billing yet Culp was in less then two minutes of "Timebomb's" hour and a half screen time.