Downtime

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.

Mr Nalluri may well have seen this film as his shoo in on the Hollywood big time, but his inability to direct actors (as opposed to "great action sequences") puts him in the queue behind all the other explosion-meisters (a beard, baseball cap and movie logo bomber jacket are also required for this 80's derivative member's club).

The film's rather flimsy premise - drug-fuelled thugs wreek havoc on the occupants of a Newcastle tower block - could be seen as a brave attempt to couple Loachian observation with the action movie genre, but it's simply a rather crass attempt to add gritty realism to a juvenile plot.

Paul McGann tries his best under the circumstances (as does Tom Georgeson), but the actors take second place in this film... The lift gets all the 'best' scenes.

'Downtime' was hailed as a calling card for one of Britain's exciting young directors. I think Mr Nalluri needs to get out more.

This is an underrated, decent little thriller. It probably cost peanuts compared to 'Speed', and the Elevator bit in this film was just as exciting as any I've ever seen.

Paul McGann isn't exactly an action hero type. He's just a bit too nice to be an action hero. But how many British actors match up to someone like Bruce Willis, so I guess he was as good a choice as any. I think it was a good thing that he was a sensitive, slightly wimpy with the asthma, and afraid of heights, because this made him a much better Romantic Hero. He, boyishly attempting to ask Susan Lynch out, and she swearing at him, was funny and sweet.

The film ending without solving any of the problems of the residents of the building (I mean that mean kid was never punished), but ending with Chrissy agreeing to go out with Rob, seems to imply that this was just a Romantic comedy all along.

Bharat Nalluri's 'Downtime' is a curiously assembled film; one part social realism to one part disaster movie. It combines a portrayal of working class life (albeit a very extreme depiction) with a sequence of thriller-style life-or-death moments; between them, the film's characters face death not just through the incident which is the film's centrepiece, a lift failure, but also through suicide, asthma, a potential shooting and two separate fires. Structurally, the film is also odd, as the lift-based story occupies the bulk of the film, but a further dramatic incident (by no means a necessary continuation) ensures that the conclusion links only weakly to what has gone before. But there are some pluses. Some of the scenes are shot very effectively (one made me physically wince), and Paul McGann and Susan Lynch play off each other nicely in the lead role (although another strange twist is that while Lynch's young son features in almost every scene, he appears to be virtually dumb, as he hardly speaks a line in the entire film). Nalluri is perhaps a director to watch on the basis of the talent he shows here; he just needs to work out what sort of movies he wants to make first.

This is a script which must have appealed on paper to the actors - there's lots and lots of snappy dialogue - BUT the pacing, structure and action sequences are woeful and in the end it leaves Paul McGann, Susan Lynch and Tom Georgeson, to name but three, in limbo, mouthing silly platitudes at the end and embarrassing themselves and us in the process.

So who's to blame - the writer or the director? And how come those producers from Channel 4 etc got involved? Couldn't they suss out this dog beforehand?

The photography (from Tony Imi) is dark and gloomy, appropriately enough, as most of the film is set in a filthy tenement lift shaft, but it makes for an unrelievedly gloomy look.

There's little attempt to show lives and characters other than during the action .

The film is mainly a real-time story, with a prequel where the two protagonists "meet cute" - she's hanging off a balcony & he's sort of trying to rescue her. Then we go to real-time lift shaft fun, followed by some truly mawkish stuff in the hospital at the end. Poor Tom Georgeson is given no real motivation for his actions.

Paul McGann does what he can with the script but he's playing such a ditz that one feels he'd be better off in some nursing home for the terminally frightened. He's also called upon to do illogical and stupid things (what a surprise, in this film). Susan Lynch plays with energy but again, it's a cardboard character with no reality, derived from memories of Hollywood films & television sitcoms. Again, she has to crawl up & down steel cables (as one so frequently does) whilst dressed in a slip of a dress and a cardigan....