By Richard Winters
My Rating: 4 out of 10
4-Word Review: College professor ingests poison.
Dex Cornell (Dennis Quaid) works as a college professor where he teaches writing, a craft he once showed promise in, but has given up on in order to sit back and enjoy the benefits of being tenured. Rob (Nicholas Lang) has written a book and gives Dex the manuscript for him to critique, but Dex is too lazy to actually read it but gives him an ‘A’ on it anyways for effort. Later Rob is pronounced dead after jumping off the roof of a college office building and then after that Dex begins to feel sick and when he goes to the hospital, he’s informed that he’s ingested a fast-acting poison, of which there’s no remedy, and will kill him within 48 hours. Dex then uses what little time has, and with the help of a college student Sydney (Meg Ryan), of which he glues himself to, to find out who it was that killed him.
This is a remake of the classic original that came out in 1950 and starred Edmond O’Brien. While most will agree that was the better film, I didn’t think this one was all that bad. Maybe, it benefited from me coming up with very low expectations, but overall, I liked the way this one played out, at least the first hour that kept me kind of riveted. The shift from black-and-white to color was slick and Quaid and Ryan give great performances. I felt the set-up was a bit better too, I clearly knew who the suspects were and genuinely intrigued to find out which one did it. I was even surprised when the actual perpetrator is unmasked. Usually, I can guess these things ahead of time, but here I didn’t.
On the flip side there were added elements thrown in for no reason. The heatwave thing confused the heck out of me. For one thing it takes place during Christmas, so there shouldn’t be any heat to speak of, and it makes no difference to the plot, so I didn’t know why it had to be brought up as much as it is, or even at all. Also, the characterizations of the policemen are pretty bad. I get it that they wanted to show that they’re ‘hardened’, but these guys come off like they have no soul. A guy comes into the station telling you he’s been poisoned there should be some concern, after all these are public servants, and to act so glib about it was over-the-top. It’s not every day that you meet someone who tells you they have literally just a few hours to live, so there should’ve been at the very least some shock and surprise on their part.
The thing really starts going off its hinges when it loses sight of its very premise. Having Dex get trapped in a car and furiously kick the rear window until it breaks in order to escape, seemed off kilter. Most healthy people probably wouldn’t have the strength to break a car window, and this guy should’ve been in a weaker condition due to the poison, making the odds of him getting out even lower.
He also seems to at one point, make love to Meg while the two are on the run. It’s not explicitly shown, but heavily implied as he’s seen putting a blanket over her nude body as she lays sleeping on a sofa, so they must’ve done something, but how? They guys is sick, so having an erection would be too physically demanding and besides that he has limited time to find his killer and that should be his top priority. Making love is wasting away precious minutes and therefore last thing he’d want to do. Having him shown getting physically weaker as the poison progresses would’ve helped heighten the urgency and kept the focus on him slowly dying, but the way things get done here we almost start to forget about that.
Spoiler Alert!
The twist ending makes things even more ridiculous. Again, I liked that Stern was revealed to be the killer, as I hadn’t even considered him, but having him doing it over a student’s manuscript was far-fetched. Apparently, it was so ‘brilliant’ he just had to steal the idea, but it’s highly unlikely that anyone would be able to write something so perfect on their first draft. Many manuscripts have to go through several revisions and edits before it even starts to come together and this is from professional writers who do it for a living, so for a student who’s never even attempted to write a book before the odds are he’d have a long way to go to get it publishing ready even if the story idea and prose had good potential.
Watching Dex then casually walk away from the interrogation room, as seen during the closing credits, didn’t make much sense either. In the original version, O’Brien died at the end, and that’s what Quaid should’ve been seen doing too. Otherwise, it makes it look like the whole thing was a hoax. Besides where exactly is he walking too? By this point he should have only a matter of seconds left and be too weak to be able to even get up let alone move. It may look ‘cool’ to have him casually stroll out, but it doesn’t mesh with the reality of the situation and further weakens the novel premise.
My Rating: 4 out of 10
Released: March 18, 1988
Runtime: 1 Hour 36 Minutes
Rated R
Director: Rocky Morton, Annabel Jankel
Studio: Touchstone Pictures
Available: DVD, Blu-ray
Scopophilia 