Timebomb

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!

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.

When I saw this film, I thought "Wow, this guy might be the next James Cameron." Perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but director Avi Nesher has a sharp, distinctive action style, and a flair for technology and attention to detail. This is a rough, tough action film, with touches of science fiction thrown in. Performances are decent, although Michael Biehn still seems stuck in Kyle Reese/Dwayne Hicks mode. Unfortunately, Nesher went on to do a bunch of straight-to-video films, the interesting "Doppleganger" and produced a batch, the only decent one being "Automatic" which he didn't direct, but certainly has his style imprinted on it. I'm hoping he hasn't given up on his dream sci-fi project, "Hammerheads" which I've heard about years ago.

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.

In this fairly straight forward, but pretty well done action film, Michael Biehn plays a likable guy working in his own watch repair shop. He suffers from amnesia and soon his past is about to catch up to him. Predictably he wasn't a watch repair man is his "previous life" but a lethal assassin.

The amnesia formula has been done many times, most notably with the blockbuster Bourne trilogy taken from Robert Ludlum's novels, but "Timebomb" has its merits. Michael Biehn is a good enough actor to play a convincing human action hero and the plot, while quite routine, delivers suspense and action. The mixing of science fiction into the film is also pretty interesting as it provides a few twists. However, there is enough cliché here to prevent this film from being anything special. Fans of the genre will enjoy it for what it is, others shouldn't even care to look. --- 6/10

Rated R for violence and profanity. Ages 13+