Nick of Time (1995) - Good performances in taut Badham thriller

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A high-stakes dilemma  is attempted as baiting tag-line on this ocher-colored poster for John Badham's Nick of Time

A young male accountant has his daughter taken hostage in Los Angeles, and the kidnappers demand that he kills the state governor during her soon to begin campaign event! - What will he do!?!

Nick of Time is written by Patrick Sheane Duncan (The Pornographer (1994)) and directed by great English filmmaker John Badham (The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976)).

It is a well-made, exciting thriller in Hitchcock style at times; one that creates a paranoid tension, which may make you wonder, if the plot is really merely the result of an insane protagonist's wild delusions.

Johnny Depp (Benny & Joon (1993)) and Christopher Walken (Kiss Toledo Goodbye (1999)) are good, and the film has sharp supporting performances from Charles S. Dutton (Threshold (2005-06)) and Marsha Mason (I Love Trouble (1994)) as the governor. Parts of the plot don't completely add up, but basically it is solid. The entire film takes place in real-time, (meaning that the plot plays out minute-for-minute in the total 90 minute playtime), and this is a high-wire act that also succeeds pretty well here.

 

Related post:

 

John Badham: Dracula (1979) - Badham's sensuous, exceptional adaptation

 

Watch a 4-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: 33 mil. $

Box office: In excess of 8.1 mil. $ (North America only)

= Uncertain but likely a mega-flop (projected return of 0.45 times its cost)

[Nick of Time was released 22 November (North America) and runs 90 minutes. Depp was paid 5 mil. $ for his performance. Shooting took place from April - June 1995 in Toronto, Ontario and in Los Angeles, California. The film opened #9, its highest placement, to a 2.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it grossed 8.1 mil. $. Regrettably the international gross numbers have not been made public. With a projected world total gross of 15 mil. $, the film ranks as a mega-flop. Roger Ebert gave it a 2.5/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. Badham returned with Incognito (1997). Depp returned in Divine Rapture (1995, short) and theatrically in Donnie Brasco (1997). Nick of Time is rotten at 31 % with a 4.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Nick of Time?