Tag Archives: Peter Strauss

John Badham’s Nick Of Time

What if someone kidnapped one of your loved ones and informed you that if you don’t assassinate a politician within ninety minutes, they’d kill them? Johnny Depp finds out exactly how a situation like that would play out in John Badham’s Nick Of Time, a stylish real time thriller with fantastic performances and a high powered premise that is milked yet never overdrawn.

Depp plays what might be his most down to earth, Everyman role here as an a humdrum accountant travelling by train with his six year old daughter (Courtney Chase), until he’s targeted by a mysterious pair of shady characters pretending to be cops, and then his nightmare begins. Christopher Walken is a force of evil nature as Smith, a menacing assassin who snatches up Depp’s daughter, puts a gun in his hand and tells him to go shoot a visiting Governor (Marsha Mason) before she’s to speak at an evening rally. Why? Because a patsy was needed and he looked like the poorest sap getting off that train, apparently.

Because the film is set in real time and doesn’t hop around to a zillion different plot threads like 24 does, we get to see the big moments and the small, the suspenseful hills and the mundane valleys in between them as Depp either tries to make harebrained escaped in order to save his daughter and avoid killing someone, and when he simply catches his breath for a moment or grabs some downtime. He’s good in the role and we’ll likely never see him in something as middle of the road as this again in terms of what he’s casted in, which is mostly garish theatrical gimmicks these days. He plays it somewhat Hitchcock and it works well that way, especially with the opening credits that seem directly lifted from one of his films. Walken is adorned in a porn moustache and slick suit, doing that thing only he can do where he’s somehow terrifying and hilarious all in the same note, it’s one of his hallmark 90’s baddie turns and I love it. Roma Maffia is slightly goofy as his second in command, and there’s work from Peter Strauss, Gloria Ruben, Yul Vasquez, Bill Smitrovitch, G.W. Spradlin and scene stealer Charles S. Dutton as a verbose shoeshine dude who helps Depp out in a tight spot. It ain’t a be all end all thriller or anything super amazing but it fires up a good time for ninety minutes, plus Depp and Walken are pretty much watchable in anything. Great stuff.

-Nate Hill