Nick of Time (1995)

[Nasher 29]

Johnny Depp & Christoper Walken in a plot that gives 88 Minutes a run for its money.

 

Depp's daughter is kidnapped and he is ordered to execute a target within a few hours or his daughter dies. Walken is the evil recruiter who assigns the mission and constantly follows Depp to ensure he completes his task.

 

Unfortunately they choose Depp from a random crowd because he showed initiative in dealing with some punks hassling commuters and then surprise! he uses that ingenuity to befoul his tormentors plans instead.

 

The ridiculous things that happen are just stupefying and at almost every turn the plan would fall apart if anyone was good at their job. You know every decision he makes to break the deal that he will talk to exactly the wrong person. On top of this, because they can't trust Depp, Walken shadows our man by a few feet and constantly talks to him in public where there must surely be security and television cameras and also walks in and out of his bosses hotel room. At other times he inexplicable stands where he cant clearly see Depp. When he bumps into Charles S Dutton you just know he is gonna be our hero's only friend.

 

An assistant is loudly executed in the bosses hotel room for no good reason after which her story is over and disappears. When he confronts his target he spends the first few minutes talking like he is a killer instead of implicating his controllers as evidence of his crazy story.

 

At one point Depp falls in slow motion down multiple floors into a shallow lobby fountain and then moments later is back upstairs, totally dry. He then walks around the lobby and no one at all, even the staff to whom he talks, notice he's the guy who fell 4 stories and was pulled out of the fountain minutes earlier. Later he drops into the same pool from 1 story up and you can see the fountain water is about 2 feet deep, he is knocked unconscious and you'd believe drowned as no one comes to his aid, and again he apparently gets out without anyone being concerned and completely dry.

 

Depp's daughter is perfectly happy with her female captor, who is nice to her, and has no concept of stranger danger apparently.

 

It's one of those movies where action justifies everything but next to nothing makes real world sense.

[pbnews 93]

Somehow I've seen this movie all the way through about four times... It's so bad, I wish they would have gone all the way and named Johnny Depp's character "Nick Timerman".

[nthurkettle 148]

I saw this specifically because of the real-time gimmick, years before "24" - but in order for the innocent regular fella to be maneuvered into the right place to undertake the assassination, literally EVERYONE around the Governor has to be in on the conspiracy - her staff, her security guards, even her damned husband. So when 20 people with intimate access to the Governor all want her dead, why risk their entire scheme by handing a live gun to a desperate rando they find at a train station?

 

Also, must bump for the action climax where Charles Dutton beats someone with his own wooden leg:

 

[Angrymanatee 0]

For a smart gangster, Christopher Walken is pretty dumb. He plans everything out but the deaf show shiner couldn't possibly be faking?

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

I remember this movie planting the idea that all you needed to silence a gun was a pillow.