Race Against Time Reviews

Far-fetched and hard driving, this futuristic noir thriller recycles a premise that's been used several times: Someone hires a hit man, then changes his or her mind. In 2008, suicide for profit has become big business. Lifecorps pays generously for body parts and offers healthy candidates one year to enjoy the limited-time windfall. Construction worker James Gabriel (Eric Roberts) can't afford the rare vaccine his dying son, Bobby (Daniel Magder), needs and sells himself to Lifecorps to raise the funds. But Bobby apparently dies before receiving the inoculation and Gabriel, furious that Lifecorps withheld treatment, reneges on his agreement. Lifecorps responds by moving up the collection deadline to the present. Pursued by Lifecorps' top tracker, Burke (Cary Elwes), Gabriel navigates an obstacle course of bounty hunters and Lifecorps guards. Can renegade bounty hunter Alex (Sarah Wynter) help Gabriel retaliate against the heartless corporation and move on with his life? Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman's script raisws the stakes early and effectively with a nail-biting prologue about another reluctant donor and keep the story moving briskly without overstating the underlying anti-medical establishment theme. Director Geoff Murphy handles the action sequences with considerable skill — take special note of the vertiginous scene in which Gabriel rescues a rookie skyscraper worker — without swamping the more contemplative scenes, which in turn benefit from nervy dialogue and slick performances. All in all, this energetic retread makes everything old seem new again.