Johnny Depp's new film doesn't quite arrive in the 'Nick of Time'
Tucking that little tidbit into his studded leather belt, Depp conquered Hollywood, stunning the public and astounding the critics with one powerhouse performance after another. From his starring role as the kid eaten by a bed in A Nightmare on Elm Street to his wordless walk-on in Platoon , Johnny's heart has taken him a long way.
How exactly it led him to Nick of Time , however, is unclear. After a genuinely stirring performance in last year's Ed Wood , I figured Depp deserved better than this paint-by-numbers yawner.
Depp stars as a CPA with a daughter and a dead ex-wife. When Christopher Walken and Roma Maffia kidnap his little girl, they extort his cooperation in a plot to assassinate the governor of California.
The crooks apparently have the support of the moneymen who got the governor her office and now resent her ingratitude. She is presented as a liberal who has turned her back on the big businesses, incurring the wrath of the profiteers.
Johnny has a little over an hour to figure out what to do, with Walken prodding him along at every step. He enlists the help of shoeshine man Charles S. Dutton (TV's "Roc"), and proceeds to whip the bad guys with an impressive display of marksmanship.
Although the trailers and the ads make Nick of Time sound unbearably banal (as does the script), it turns out to be a not thoroughly unenjoyable piece. It's not exactly candy; it's more like creamy peanut butter: bland and fatty but filling.
Nick of Time is being sold on the fact that it provides "real terror in real time." That means that director John Badham shows us about a million clocks throughout the movie to demonstrate forcibly that what is taking an hour and a half within the plot is taking an hour and a half in the theater.
It seems like more. Badham references the most famous "real time" movie, High Noon , with an ultra-high angle zoomout. But Nick of Time has neither Grace Kelly nor the compelling theme to elevate it from its generic status to anything near the level of that classic.
Badham also directed War-Games , Short Circuit and several other predictably amiable films. He's trying hard to be cool, though, and he's apparently seen "NYPD Blue" because his camera never holds still. The camera work is never too distracting, though, and the sharp editing pulls things together.
There's no reason to go all the way to a theater to see it, but there's no compelling reason to change the channel when it comes out on HBO. Don't waste your money.
This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the December 1, 1995 issue.
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