Péril sur Sydney

SECONDS TO SPARE

Aspect ratio: 1.78:1

Sound format: Stereo

After serving time in prison on a trumped-up charge of corruption, an ex-DEA officer (Antonio Sabato Jr.) travels to Australia in search of the man responsible for his ordeal (Jerome Ehlers), a rogue CIA agent who has hijacked a passenger train and is threatening to detonate a nerve bomb in the heart of Sydney...

Antonio Sabato Jr. is the perfect action hero: He's dark and handsome, and he can kick butt with the best of 'em. The only 'trouble' is his chest - he's got the best pecs in the business, and his costume designer knows it. When he wears a tight-fitting T-shirt (as he does frequently throughout this opportunistic mini-epic), or - better still - when he isn't wearing a shirt at all (there's only one gratuitous 'topless' scene, but welcome nonetheless!), some viewers will be hopelessly distracted by the size, shape and all-round magnificence of those plate-sized pectorals. Thankfully, Sabato wears another (loose fitting) shirt just long enough for Brian Trenchard-Smith's ho-hum actioner to emerge into some kind of focus, and while there's nothing new in either the script (by Trenchard-Smith and Dennis Pratt) or direction, the movie contains enough explosions and punch-ups to satisfy the target audience. Former soap star Kimberley Davies (sporting a rather magnificent chest of her own!) is Sabato's potential love interest, prone to falling into the wrong hands and being rescued by her hunky would-be boyfriend, while Kate Beahan suffers gracefully as Ehler's naive associate, a good-hearted soul who realizes - too late! - the hijack will end in disaster for millions of innocent people. Professional in all departments, the movie is no more than a routine time-waster, but Sabato's pumped-up torso is worth endless repeat viewings. Drool, slobber...

Although this movie was originally titled "Seconds To Spare", for its North American release the title was changed to "Operation Wolverine: Seconds To Spare", no doubt in an attempt to make a connection with Antonio Sabato Jr.'s earlier Australian movie "Code Name: Wolverine" - even though Sabato is playing a completely different character here! Anyway, as other user comments have previously noted, this movie is a rip- off of "Under Siege 2". While that movie was not great, it looks great compared to this rip-off. It was clearly made for TV, so it's obvious that the movie didn't have a great budget, with various cost-cutting measures evident throughout. But what really sinks the movie is how surprisingly boring it is. Australians have made some great action movies, but you wouldn't know it from this movie, with one scene falling with a thud after another. By the way, has Antonio Sabato Jr. ever been in a good movie?

Basically what we have here is a bargain basement action thriller set mainly on a train and utilising numerous bits of other film's scripts (spot the photocopied plots from Under Siege 2, Death Train and numerous others here).

Add every cliché in the book, some truly awful acting, standard issue one liners that don't work, various cardboard characters, the token eye candy and a cast that seemed to be only in this as they desperately needed the money to a budget of about ten dollars and this is the mess you wind up with.

The locomotives acted better than the cast, probably because they did not have to recite the cheesy clichéd dialogue that basically ran from start to finish, it is little wonder that one comment from an Australian (where this Antipodean codswallop was made and is set) wanted to hang his head in shame that they where producing stuff like this.

Stick to Mad Max films please.......

The only thing worth watching about this movie is Kimberley Davies, and that's just looking at her, not her acting (she can't act - but then again, that only puts her on par with the rest of the cast of this shocker).

Mmm. Should have given it 1/10 instead of 2. Certainly the special effects aren't even worth that.

Read a good book, watch something else, eg. flies crawling up the wall, or maybe grass growing, or photos of Kimberley, or some of the wonderful non-action-genre movies that have come out of Australia in the last twenty years.

One day Australians will realise that they make great intelligent movies without trying to match Hollywood for action blockbusters which they will never be able to do. Until then we are stuck with these occasional misguided unsuccessful forays.

Contemplating this movie's showing on overseas TV networks makes me cringe as an Australian.

Don't bother with this one.

That movie got all in it ! Action , Thrill and the acting is very good for a TV movie. All in all nice movie for the cold days comming. Hope they do more nice movies like that on TV. So if u haven't seen it GET IT !