Thanks for the memories!

Absolutely Fantastic

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

John Turman takes a break from writing comic book and cartoon based movies to pen this tale of Lewis Hicks (Cuba Gooding Jr.) a newspaper reporter who gets drawn into the homicide investigation of his mistress and finding the killer's diary/sketchbook.The film starts off well enough, nothing to special, but watchable enough. But as the movie goes on, the plot unravels more and more with each subsequent ridiculous twist. Furthermore, Neal McDonough, such a brilliant heavy in the most recent season of Justified, is sadly wasted in this ridiculous little film.PS: Newspapers seem to be extremely affordable in the future

Lewis Hicks (Cuba Gooding Jr.) is a boozing reporter who took for granted his ex spouse as well as his son who he misses weekend visits with because he's always onto the next biggest scoop. If his personal relationships could hit rock bottom any further, his current girlfriend ends up dead at the hands of a serial killer. Hicks shows up at her place after the fact but chases down the culprit and gets knocked out in an alleyway. He finds a diary with names and dates for more killings to come. The lead detective investigating the case has something against him from a slate in a past story and won't listen to what he's telling him now. Now Hicks feels it's his obligation to take on the investigation himself for redemption in his own life. The victims all have in common a troubled little boy at an orphanage who had more things happen to him at an early age than most can call claim to. Hicks starts to get too close and as a result the evidence starts to point to him instead of the real killer who always slips in and out without anyone else seeing. From then on out it turns into a cat and mouse game of good vs evil before more victims' lives are claimed.The "big" twist in "Ticking Clock" is more related to science fiction than an action or thriller, and causes you to suspend your disbelief and except the facts at face value. This direct-to-video feature comes across like a scraped episode for "Millennium," with a similar, strange tone of drama and horror, where everything is baked in shadows, panned to get atmosphere, time stamped and generates tragic piano pieces to build mood. Though a share of the dialogue doesn't feel practiced, the suspense feels like false theatrics and the "acting" feels done on the first or second take, not to mention it has sentiment slipped in and can feel melodramatic without chemistry of the cast to back that up. This also attempts to be snide and sarcastic but the interaction between the actors can feel just as forced at times. The most important aspects this picture asks are: Is someone really able to get a second chance out of life? Is it possible to correct mistakes in the past? Is one able to put right what went wrong? Though, correcting one thing can cause another to have to be adjusted and so on until things are a mess all over again. Though answering those questions can be done without having to jump through hoops to get there by watching a film that feels quickly put together. Here's another question: If the filmmakers don't have both their feet in this, then how can they expect the viewer to? (Also submitted on http://fromblacktoredfilmreviews.blogspot.com/)

What a load of crap, I had to turn this off about a half hour into it. The script was crap, the acting was crap. What a waste of film. This will be the last Cuba Gooding movie I watch. If this is the best he can do now he may as well get a job at Home Depot or Walmart. What a waste of a promising career, his projects have bee going from bad to worse and this by far is the worst I've seen. How does a person go from an Academy Award to this, is it bad management, poor project selection or no input or interest in his own career. Where is the Cuba Gooding that acted in A Murder of Crows, bring back the Cuba and maybe he'd get some better roles. What a shame.

Oscar-winner Cuba Gooding, Jr. has had one of the strangest acting careers in a long time. Ever since he won at the Academy for his performance as Rod Tidwell in 'Jerry Maguire,' he has been caught in a sort of downward spiral. This has sent the once-promising actor deep into the realm of straight-to-video nonsense, like his previous films 'The Devil's Tomb' and 'The Way of War.' Why he's been doing this is a mystery. No talent agent is bad enough to actually think these scripts are worth while or think they're anything more than a guaranteed failure. Maybe it's bad luck, maybe it's laziness, maybe Cuba just doesn't want the spotlight he deserves.Whatever the reason for his failing success, it has led him straight to 'Ticking Clock.' In it, he plays Lewis Hicks, a journalist who gets put on the trail of a sadistic serial killer after his own girlfriend is viciously murdered. With the killer's journal in hand, Lewis must race against time to rescue the murderer's next victims. As the path begins to weave its way around and to a young orphan boy, Lewis begins to discover a deeper mystery surrounding the murders.In the crime-thriller subgenre, there are really only a few good ways to go about writing a story. One maintains consant mystery, concealing the identity of the killer until a final reveal that should be a shock to the audience. The other is to reveal the killer from the start and use his intentions and motivation as the mystery. With 'Ticking Clock,' however, both approaches are mostly thrown out, revealing the killer's identity, his motive, and everything else pretty much immediately. This is a problem because the mystery is what is usually keeps a viewer watching in a film like this. If you don't have it, the audience just won't care. Here, the writers knew what they wanted to accomplish with an interesting (though ridiculous) twist, but didn't give enough reason to stick with it in the first two acts. By the third act, the audience is fairly apathetic with the story & characters and will most likely not even care about the twist, which the entire film revolves around.This major flaw is not the only problem with the film. No, a more detrimental issue to its success comes from the extremely amateurish direction by Ernie Barbarash, a man very familiar with mediocre straight-to-video thrillers with his work on 'Cube Zero' and 'Stir of Echoes: The Homecoming.' If you look at a film like 'Se7en' (which, by the way, 'Ticking Clock' actually compares itself to on its DVD sleeve along with 'Silence of the Lambs'), you will see a perfect a example of how to craft a stunning & dark crime thriller. With 'Se7en,' David Fincher used the gritty city setting as almost another character, having the actors play off the direction in a way that added a deep realism to the film. Barbarash, with 'Ticking Clock,' blows his opportunity to do this by squandering the Baton Rouge & Las Vegas settings he had at his disposal, instead limiting the entire film to a few boring settings like living rooms & back alleys. Add this to the rather annoying cinematography by Phil Parmet and 'Ticking Clock' is just all around unpleasant to watch.Unfortunately, there isn't much else to cling onto to try to save the film from being a total disappointment. The script is boring & contrived, providing nothing much that hasn't been done better many times before. The lack of mystery & thrills for the first two acts gives no real drive to continue watching for anyone but completionists who don't like to leave a film unfinished. Even the ridiculous, supernatural twist isn't original, and ends up hurting the film anyway due to the number of plot holes it creates. For being so crucial to the film's success, one would think the filmmakers would be willing to do what they can to seal plot holes (like a simple case of incorrect eye colour, for example). Even the once-talented Cuba Gooding, Jr. has nothing much to offer thanks to how poorly his character was written. Let's face it, an actor can only do so much with what they're given. Take De Niro & Pacino as examples in supremely disappointing 'Righteous Kill' from a couple years back. Add in some shoddy gore FX, CGI that looks like it should be in a mid-90s sci-fi flick, and a mundane cast of supporting actors, and you have nothing more than a sad excuse for a crime thriller here.Overall, 'Ticking Clock' is just one of those films that will be stuck on the Blockbuster® shelvse for a few months trying to bait renters into biting onto the former star power of Cuba Gooding, Jr. Sadly, it will do nothing but disappoint with its unoriginal & unthrilling story and amteurish filmmaking.Final Verdict: 3.5/10. Hopefully Cuba will get another chance in the spotlight some day.-AP3-