REVIEW: Five Days To Midnight
Much like stand-off movies, I love watching time-travel movies like I love solving logic puzzles. The real draw is the riddle of the plot, and a clever story will usually trump however bad the rest of the movie turns out to be. Now that I've seen "Five Days to Midnight," I still don't really get how it all worked out, but I enjoyed most of the ride to the ambiguous and paradoxical solution. Plus, it had Timothy Hutton and Kari Matchett, both of whom I'd rather watch than most actors that pop up in these kinds of projects. I love them so much that I'd even rewatch "Demons" if someone told me that they had cameos.
Just to get it off of my chest, I refuse to refer to it as "5ive" instead of "Five." I guess using the number instead of the letter is the hip and cool way to do it, but I'm a big square and I think it's stupid. It became immediately cliched after 'the style' popped up in the "Seven" ad campaign, and it's never ever going to be cool ever again. For the last time, numbers are not pronounced with the same sound as the first letter of the name of said number. Anyone who thinks it does probably spent too much time watching "Fight Club" and getting whacked in the head by their moron friend who they convinced to fight them so they could figure out who they really were. Okay, I'm glad that's settled.
"Five Days to Midnight" starts off with the happy life of Timothy Hutton's J.T. Neumeyer, a physics professor who's celebrating his daughter Jesse's birthday with his new girlfriend Claudia (Matchett). It also happens to be the anniversary of the late Mrs. Neumeyer, and when Hutton and his daughter visit the grave, they happen upon a strange, metallic briefcase with "J.T. Neumeyer" printed on top. Inside, Hutton finds startling information: the police report on his unsolved murder, complete with photographs, suspects, and evidence, dated five days from then. Initially not sure if it's some kind of sick joke, he watches as the events detailed in the report begin to fall into place, and makes a stand to change the (probable) future. In order to make sure that the future is safe for himself, his daughter, and his mob-connected girlfriend, Hutton and Randy Quaid's Detective Sikorski hurriedly try to eliminate (read: avoid) everyone on the suspect list before it's too late.
The whole movie is set up as a relatively straightforward puzzle: there's the murder, the suspects, and the briefcase, and the script sticks to the problem doggedly enough for the audience to think that it's all going to make sense and come together in the end. The first three episodes are quite effective as potboilers, and kept me interested in finding out whodunit; the final episode of the series, though, kind of drops the ball in terms of holding the puzzle together. The rules of time travel aren't really respected, and despite the directness of the other parts, just shoots in and out of plausibility, and it seems like plot twists were tossed in for drama. For instance, just before Hutton finds out who murders him, a helicopter crashes through the ceiling, and Tom Cruise starts firing a machine gun at the National Guard! Alternate universe movies sometimes take odd turns!
I had a great theory about who did it right from the first episode, and I was way off. Of course, my idea was kind of far-fetched (although cool), but at least it made more sense than the actual ending. Since it's a mystery, I don't want to give away any spoilers, but suffice to say you're a better man than I if you can tell me how she got the briefcase full of evidence in the first place. And I don't want to hear anything about alternate timelines and parallel futures! Nothing! Got that? When it comes to time travel, alternate and parallel universes are the cheap and easy solution, because they can explain almost anything away, even if it doesn't make sense in 'our' timeline. Actually, they don't explain; they excuse. Physics-minded friends, forgive me, but when a movie cries parallel universes it's usually the equivalent of the cavalry arriving with photon blasters, or saving the plot via deus ex machina. It's hard to argue against an act of God saving the day, but it's a cheap shot, and it's going to make me groan.
The miniseries also gets a few marks off because of the overbearing style of the filmmaking. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I don't think shooting every fifth shot at six frames per second really amps up the drama so much as makes me want to vomit at whatever strobe light I think is somewhere in my television. Flashy editing and stylistic excess are fine in movies, but they're only fine when the film actually calls for them. I didn't like "Moulin Rouge," but I can at least see that the things happening there were at the service of the rest of the movie. The story in this series was a time-travel puzzle, and it was a straightforward one at that, and every single excess that didn't need to be there only complicated matters. Complicated matters and irritated me. Irritated me and made my girlfriend go check her email instead of watching anything past the opening twenty minutes.
It's still worth a watch, but be prepared to scratch your head at the end -- and rub your eyes.
ARE YOU ASTONISHED?
Just to get it off of my chest, I refuse to refer to it as "5ive" instead of "Five." I guess using the number instead of the letter is the hip and cool way to do it, but I'm a big square and I think it's stupid. It became immediately cliched after 'the style' popped up in the "Seven" ad campaign, and it's never ever going to be cool ever again. For the last time, numbers are not pronounced with the same sound as the first letter of the name of said number. Anyone who thinks it does probably spent too much time watching "Fight Club" and getting whacked in the head by their moron friend who they convinced to fight them so they could figure out who they really were. Okay, I'm glad that's settled.
"Five Days to Midnight" starts off with the happy life of Timothy Hutton's J.T. Neumeyer, a physics professor who's celebrating his daughter Jesse's birthday with his new girlfriend Claudia (Matchett). It also happens to be the anniversary of the late Mrs. Neumeyer, and when Hutton and his daughter visit the grave, they happen upon a strange, metallic briefcase with "J.T. Neumeyer" printed on top. Inside, Hutton finds startling information: the police report on his unsolved murder, complete with photographs, suspects, and evidence, dated five days from then. Initially not sure if it's some kind of sick joke, he watches as the events detailed in the report begin to fall into place, and makes a stand to change the (probable) future. In order to make sure that the future is safe for himself, his daughter, and his mob-connected girlfriend, Hutton and Randy Quaid's Detective Sikorski hurriedly try to eliminate (read: avoid) everyone on the suspect list before it's too late.
The whole movie is set up as a relatively straightforward puzzle: there's the murder, the suspects, and the briefcase, and the script sticks to the problem doggedly enough for the audience to think that it's all going to make sense and come together in the end. The first three episodes are quite effective as potboilers, and kept me interested in finding out whodunit; the final episode of the series, though, kind of drops the ball in terms of holding the puzzle together. The rules of time travel aren't really respected, and despite the directness of the other parts, just shoots in and out of plausibility, and it seems like plot twists were tossed in for drama. For instance, just before Hutton finds out who murders him, a helicopter crashes through the ceiling, and Tom Cruise starts firing a machine gun at the National Guard! Alternate universe movies sometimes take odd turns!
I had a great theory about who did it right from the first episode, and I was way off. Of course, my idea was kind of far-fetched (although cool), but at least it made more sense than the actual ending. Since it's a mystery, I don't want to give away any spoilers, but suffice to say you're a better man than I if you can tell me how she got the briefcase full of evidence in the first place. And I don't want to hear anything about alternate timelines and parallel futures! Nothing! Got that? When it comes to time travel, alternate and parallel universes are the cheap and easy solution, because they can explain almost anything away, even if it doesn't make sense in 'our' timeline. Actually, they don't explain; they excuse. Physics-minded friends, forgive me, but when a movie cries parallel universes it's usually the equivalent of the cavalry arriving with photon blasters, or saving the plot via deus ex machina. It's hard to argue against an act of God saving the day, but it's a cheap shot, and it's going to make me groan.
The miniseries also gets a few marks off because of the overbearing style of the filmmaking. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I don't think shooting every fifth shot at six frames per second really amps up the drama so much as makes me want to vomit at whatever strobe light I think is somewhere in my television. Flashy editing and stylistic excess are fine in movies, but they're only fine when the film actually calls for them. I didn't like "Moulin Rouge," but I can at least see that the things happening there were at the service of the rest of the movie. The story in this series was a time-travel puzzle, and it was a straightforward one at that, and every single excess that didn't need to be there only complicated matters. Complicated matters and irritated me. Irritated me and made my girlfriend go check her email instead of watching anything past the opening twenty minutes.
It's still worth a watch, but be prepared to scratch your head at the end -- and rub your eyes.
ARE YOU ASTONISHED?
- Timothy Hutton, Timothy Hutton. Kari Matchett, Kari Matchett. Ah, glory. Too bad he didn't bring along any other of his Nero Wolfe players.
- So, my idea was that Hutton came back from the future to murder his past self. I don't know how it would work, logically, but I think it's a cool idea. Plus, it makes exactly as much sense as the 'real' ending.
- What happened to Randy Quaid? He cycles through existing and not-existing like some kind of Schrodinger's Cat. No parts, many parts, no parts, many parts! I wish he would be more active, since he's my favorite Quaid. Come to think of it, he's lucky to be so different in appearance and style than his brother, because we all know the fate of thespian siblings that are essentially interchangeable. Right, Frank Stallone? You know what I'm talking about, Gary Swayze...
sent by The Retropolitan at 12:43 AM
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