Nick of Time (John Badham, 1995)

Oh man that was fantastic! My heart is still beating from the suspense! Quite a thrilling story and it was suddenly all over. I did not expect it to be this good, proving that you shouldn’t judge a book (or movie) by its cover. Johnny definitely has a knack for choosing great roles with interesting and engaging protagonists, and this is one of those rare occasions where he kind of plays an action hero (though without a lot of the explosive action so typical of Hollywood films). 

It revolves around Gene Watson (the fabulous Johnny Depp) who arrives in Los Angeles with his six-year-old daughter and is approached by a pair of criminals posing as police officers. They kidnap his daughter and plan to kill her if Watson doesn’t follow their orders, which is to go to a nearby hotel and kill the Californian governor in 90 minutes. Although at the start I saw a few plot holes or possibilities that made it less believable and harder to get into the story, by the end of the film I was on the edge of my seat, hoping that Johnny would save the day! To make things scarier, you have the evil Christopher Walken as the main crook, who is always watching Watson to make sure he doesn’t alert the authorities or speak to anyone (which is the first possible flaw avoided). He is always popping up when Watson is trying to communicate his situation to people he encounters. You get the feeling that he won’t be able to commit the assassination but then as the clock ticks (the movie is pretty much in real time), it starts to look like he doesn’t have any option. 

Finding a way out becomes more complex as we discover that almost everyone around the governor is in on the plot, including security and even her husband. Watson tries to get her assistant to help and because of Walken’s ability to appear out of nowhere and his connections with everyone (even security), this attempt is soon stopped and she ends up dead. Saviour comes in an unlikely form of a shoeshine man, who at first seems lost and not very helpful but in a second encounter things start to click. Luckily, a happy ending ensues with Watson killing Walken’s character (which was another potential story fault that I kept thinking would have been what I would’ve tried to do) and the shoeshine man kills his criminal assistant and father and daughter are reunited (although we do see one of the criminal/security men get away in a limousine). In a way, quite a sweet movie about an innocent father who has a loving relationship with his daughter and though he is essentially good and moral, extreme situations place him in basic protective mode, ready to do anything to save his daughter. A great film, I think I’ll be watching it again, although probably not for a while as this is the type of movie that is best on its first suspenseful and surprising viewing.

4.5/5