Schedule freaks may want to down an extra dose of prozac before checking out
Johnny Depp in this nifty thriller that's a '90s variation on such "real
time" classics as "High Noon" and "Rope". Depp has ninety minutes
approximately the movie's length - to save his little girl's life. She's
been kidnapped by bad-guy Christopher Walken who hands Depp a gun and sends
him after a designated target. Either he carries out his assassin's mission
or his daughter is dead meat. Director John Badham knows his script isn't
airtight and he knows that he doesn't have million-dollar stunts (flying
buses, Ahnuld riding a horse into an elevator) to camouflage the weaker
bits. But he's smart enough to let the dead-on simplicity of the premise
cover for him. And he's got a not-so-secret weapon in Depp. Almost
unrecognizable in a geeky glasses, CPA suit and short haircut, Depp is
wonderfully adept in the Hitchcockian role of an ordinary man caught in
extraordinary circumstances. He's just dandy and so is this
every-second-counts thriller.
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