Desperate Hours Reviews

This remake of the 1955 Humphrey Bogart thriller DESPERATE HOURS reunites director Michael Cimino and star Mickey Rourke, who last worked together on the so-bad-it's-good YEAR OF THE DRAGON. This time out, the result of their collaboration is merely bad, despite rich, painterly cinematography by Doug Milsome (FULL METAL JACKET), a driving score by David Mansfield, and a terrific cast. Regrettably, what that cast is called upon to do here is often downright embarrassing, especially for Kelly Lynch, Matt Dillon's alluring love interest in DRUGSTORE COWBOY, here haplessly cast as Rourke's "abuse" interest. Lynch plays Nancy Breyers, a lawyer who is inexplicably in love with client Michael Bosworth (Rourke), a simpering, sociopathic convict. During a parole hearing, Nancy sneaks a gun to Bosworth (because she has the weapon strapped to her thigh, Cimino has a chance to show Bosworth groping under her skirt--in close-up, of course). After Bosworth snaps a guard's neck (which provides the movie's first big laugh, considering the combatants' relative sizes), lawyer and client slip away down a fire escape, pausing only for Bosworth to rip open Nancy's blouse--again in close-up. (That bit of chivalry forces Nancy to wear her coat backwards when she hits the street. And since the street happens to be in Salt Lake City, one would think that a woman wearing her coat backwards would be conspicuous. But this is a Cimino film, so nobody bats an eye.) Only a friend of Nancy's impedes the escape, when she literally bumps into the lovesick lawyer, knocking her off her ultra-high heels, so that Bosworth has to leave Nancy behind. Joining his brother, Wally (Elias Koteas), and their partner, the hulking, half-witted Albert (David Morse), Bosworth goes screeching off into the sunset. Needing a hideout until Nancy can catch up with them, the three settle on the home of Tim (Anthony Hopkins) and Nora (Mimi Rogers) Cornell, who have a young son, Zack (Danny Gerard), and nubile daughter, May (Shawnee Smith). Bosworth is attracted to the house because the "For Sale" sign out front indicates to him a home in trouble. He's right; Tim and Nora are in the process of getting a divorce, but why that makes them desirable victims is never made clear. However, it's hard to quibble with the gimmick that brings Rogers and Hopkins into the film, since their performances come close to redeeming this dismal fiasco. Rogers succeeds in the tougher assignment, making Nora compelling even though she is yet another basically brainless Cimino female. But Hopkins steals the movie, putting a venomous spin on each line of his typically boneheaded Ciminoesque dialog (credited, in part, to Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, who reportedly quit the film's production over "creative differences" with Cimino). While Bosworth and his buddies are fooling around with the Cornells, FBI agent Chandler (Lindsay Crouse) takes charge of the manhunt. She's the only woman in the film who can think and walk at the same time, so, this being a Cimino film, she's made to look like a wig-wearing man and is given dialog that would be more at home in SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT. Crouse, nonetheless, manages to have some fun with her wily backwoods character, babbling about "goin' tactical," which means that she lets her gung-ho underlings use the Cornell house for target practice. This being a Cimino film, Bosworth eventually becomes the bull's eye. DESPERATE HOURS is silly from start to finish, but its biggest laugh comes during the end credits, which list an entire staff of credibility consultants. Of course, the joke is that DESPERATE HOURS isn't credible for a single second. Despite the involvement of a "hostage negotiations" consultant, the film's negotiations consist solely of Bosworth screaming into a phone for 10 seconds to demand a car, a plane, and a bag of money. Didn't he ever see DOG DAY AFTERNOON? More to the point, has Cimino ever seen it? In DESPERATE HOURS credibility gives way to contrivance. Instead of negotiating further, Chandler sends Nancy into the Cornell house to lure Bosworth and his brother out (Albert has already bitten more than his share of bullets while trying to escape). Neither a professional at this sort of thing nor very stable emotionally at the moment, Nancy seems like an unlikely candidate for this assignment. But, this being a Cimino film, it's numbingly obvious that the sole reason Nancy is reintroduced into the action is so that Bosworth can again rip her blouse open. After so many years and so many bad films, it has become clear that Cimino is simply in over his head, that perhaps he would be better off as a second-unit director. As in other Cimino films, individual scenes throughout DESPERATE HOURS are well-staged, especially the chases and stuntwork. But, taken as a whole, the film is dragged down by the same old incoherent plotting and characters, driven by the same old half-baked machismo and mealy-mouthed misogyny that have come to define Cimino the auteur. As a result, and despite the efforts of Rogers and Hopkins, DESPERATE HOURS is more than a title; it's a description of a movie-going experience. (Profanity, violence, sexual violence, adult situations.)