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SYNOPSIS: Academy Award winner Cuba Gooding Jr. (1996, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, "Jerry Maguire") stars as Lewis Hicks, a crime journalist specializing in brutal murders. When he discovers the mutilated body of his new girlfriend and comes into the possession of a gruesome journal revealing the serial killer's intended victims, he must find a way to prevent the horrific slayings before time runs out in this taut, psychological thriller in the tradition of "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Se7en".
MOVIE
REVIEW:
No one likes to be hoodwinked, so any movie better have a damn good excuse if it intends to do so to its viewers. “Ticking Clock” comes up with the most audacious kind of hoodwink, pulling out the genre rug from right under its audience’s feet- unfortunately it does so in a most clumsy fashion, so you’re not likely to appreciate the surprise. To give the mildest of spoilers, what begins as a routine serial killer thriller turns out to have a supernatural twist, and one of the most hokey of them all if I may add.
Academy-Award winner Cuba Gooding Jr. headlines this movie, playing the investigative journalist Lewis Hicks estranged from his wife and son, and having a relationship on the side with an attorney named Felicia Carson. Since his career-high in “Jerry Maguire”, Gooding Jr. has been on a consistent downward spiral, and his banal performance here is further proof that he’ll need a miracle to get himself out of the ditch he’s been diggingfor himself by acting in such straight-to-video duds over the past few years.
Anyhow, Lewis walks into Felicia’s house just after she is murdered by a serial killer (Neal McDonough, who has since perfected his bad-guy sinister get-up) and proceeds to chase the killer down a dark alley, whereupon the killer just…disappears. Yes, that should be fair warning that there is more than meets the eye, but screenwriter John Turman’s answer to that mystery turns out more laughable than admirable.
Turman does himself no favours by padding the movie with a series of plot contrivances leading up to the reveal. Lewis all too conveniently returns to the alley where he discovers the killer’s journal with future victims and intended dates of their murders, and then again simply finds a piece of clothing from the man’s jacket in his house after a run-in. These lazy plot developments diminish any credibility of the killer being a smart, meticulous man- and of this film being anywhere as intelligent as “Se7en” as its DVD cover touts.
While small-screen director Ernie Barnabash is no David Fincher, his previous works like “Stir of Echoes: Homecoming” and “Cube Zero” have shown that he is at least competent enough to make a decent film. Nevertheless, these abilities have seemingly eluded him, his idea of making a thriller the blatant use of flashbacks that start off irritating and quickly become plain annoying. It doesn’t help that he has an overenthusiastic composer, who seems to think every scene needs to be accompanied by an intrusive score that holds little subtlety.
Considering how inept Barnabash and Turman have handled the material, it would probably have been wiser for them to have just stuck with a simple, straight-forward serial killer thriller without the additional twist. It takes finesse to pull off a genre hat trick like what they have attempted in “Ticking Clock”, and with none of that, the only reason this movie remains entertaining is to watch how they so awkwardly botch it up.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
NIL.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 uses the back speakers mostly during the film’s intrusive score; otherwise, dialogue and action is mostly heard from the front and centre speakers. Visuals are clean and sharp, providing good contrast during the night scenes.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Gabriel Chong
Posted on 27 January 2011
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