This was a rare VHS I bought sight unseen. Blockbuster had it in their previously viewed bin after barely two weeks as a new release, and at that price, the Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken marquee value was enough to take the chance on a 5.99 purchase. I went in cold, not really registering it had been a bomb, and I certainly didn’t seek out any reviews outside of the glowing blurb on the back of the box by Ron Brewington of the American Urban Radio Network. And that was good enough for me.
The conceit is right there in the 88 minute runtime. The story plays out in actual real time, matching the clock as Depp’s mild-mannered accountant is grabbed at Union Station by Christopher Walken and Roma Maffia, handed a gun, and told to assassinate the Governor of California at the Bonaventure Hotel before 1:30, or his kidnapped daughter dies. In most countdown movies, the clock is fairly fluid from the audience’s point of view. In Commando, Arnold glances at his watch periodically but always seems to have all the time in the world to get to his destination. Here, when a character checks a clock, you can check it against your own, and that makes for some wonderfully stressed out viewing.
Christopher Walken is the real reason to watch this. though. People forget that before his slide into gleeful self-parody, before the SNL hosting gigs and the cowbell sketch turned him into everyone’s favourite eccentric uncle, Walken mostly played heavies, and he was terrifying at it. His Mr. Smith is calm and precise, completely indifferent to the pain he’s inflicting. By the 2000s, somewhere around The Rundown, he just seemed to enjoy his own mythology and was happy to play with it. But in 1995, he was still doing the scary intense thing, and this is one of his best turns.
The interesting casting question is Depp. Part of what made Bruce Willis work so well in Die Hard is that he looked and felt like a regular guy who couldn’t brute force his way out of a crisis, and that vulnerability is what drove up the stakes. Depp isn’t some hulking action hero either, but he exudes a kind of detached Hollywood perfection that never quite lets you believe he’s a regular dad. Someone like Jeff Daniels or Anthony Edwards in the role, someone less composed and more visibly rattled, would have made you genuinely worry about whether this guy was going to make it out. Casting someone as pretty as Depp kind of signals that you’re watching a movie, and that nothing too bad is likely going to happen to him. That was my mild gripe with it, and probably still is, but I love this ride and I often make time for it.
Still, as an exercise in style, it works. Paramount spent $33 million on this and only got $8 million back in ticket sales, but the people who caught this cold, on a rental shelf or a late-night cable airing, and let the countdown pull them in? Like me, they probably had a great time.
-Pop
Nick of Time arrived on home video this week in 1996, after a November 22nd, 1995 theatrical release.