You’ll Pay For It With Almost Two Hours Of Your Life!
Split Second (1992) – In a dystopian near-future, a London detective hunts for his partner’s killer. After years without a clue, the killer has returned, leaving slaughter behind. Will he be the hunter or the hunted?
Directed by Tony Maylam
Starring Rutger Hauer, Kim Cattrall
Why I Like It – Ummmmmm, yeah, no.
There’s not much to say about this movie because it can be summed up in a sentence. There is nothing to get excited about here. Bad script, bad acting, bad direction, boring. If you’re a Kim Cattrall fan, you get to see her topless. There’s also a gratuitous scene in a fetish/strip club. Oh, and if watching things explode after being shot is your jam, you’re good here too.
Seriously, that bad.
My brain began erasing the memory files assigned to this movie as soon as it was over. Some parts have a “Beverly Hills Cop” vibe, while others lean towards “Dirty Harry”. It doesn’t do either of them well. The monster/bad guy’s appearance was a last-minute decision by the production team, and it looks like a rush job. The story has elements of global warming, resulting in near total melting of the ice caps by 2008. This results in a massive collapse of English society and a flooded, dystopian London. The script is a near-total re-write of the original (which was set in Los Angeles), and the stress of filming the mess forced Tony Maylam to leave the production.
Let’s try to be generous. Was there anything worth watching? The scenes trying to be funny are mostly amusing, including one that riffs on a classic scene from “Jaws.” In one scene, two characters played by Hauer and Alastair Duncan are talking about their names, and Duncan’s character cracks up. That’s not in the script. Duncan just loses his composure. Hauer keeps his focus and the resulting scene is so much fun, they left it in. And there’s a pretty good line “Paranoid people with guns are a menace to society.”
Save yourself while you can.
Rating – ** Not Impressed
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