AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Split second (1992)11/9/2022 For myself, I found it difficult not to love Hauer’s character living in nothing more than a pigsty of a disused studio flat but enjoying a bathroom with the best hot water a detective could buy. Blowtorch lighter for cigars and Ian Dury as the owner of a dystopian bondage club. Choc-full of elements we’ve seen played out in better movies, the film draws you towards the more bizzaro aspects because of itself. They even manage to get the great Wendy Carlos to help with the music.īut lord if this isn’t an unholy mix of McBain from The Simpsons (1989), Alien (1979) and the best mid-level PlayStation video game you never played. This is a movie that has a certain amount of tradesman craft behind the camera (co-director Ian Sharp directed the action sequences for Goldeneye), and there is a clear earnestness in everyone we see on screen (poor Pete Postlethwaite). And not where we are with the multitude of B-movie shark films which are all far too knowing about what they’re doing. However, its broad, misjudged attempts at humour, awkward tonal shifts, and typical action set pieces clearly place it in the realms of cult. It is easy to scoff at Split Second (I don’t recall why it’s even called that) because it’s the type of cheapie sci-fi flick that would be picked up by only certain completists in a Ritz video hire on a Friday night. The reality is my face twisted in puzzlement as Hauer calls a dog a dickhead. Rutger Hauer is a Detective who is hunting the now flooded London streets for the supernatural serial killer who murdered his ex-partner. A hodgepodge of police cop drama clichés and naff science fiction, the kernels of a good idea are kicked under the carpet for a flood of half-cooked banalities. I couldn’t comprehend the film’s creation any more than its convoluted storyline. Was I entertained by Split Second? A film in which Hauer plays a maverick cop hunting down a supernatural beastie in a waterlogged, dystopian London? Maybe. Would it be confusion? Disgust? Anxious amusement? Those were the expressions my face contorted into when watching this American-British low budget production. I would like to see that dignitary’s face. I hope there will be a time when I’m in the presence of someone of some royal personage, so I can bring up the film in which Rutger Hauer showed a police badge to a dog and called it a dickhead. If one is looking for a drop of bizarre lunacy to take the edge off whatever strife they may be facing, then this dollop of what in the hell of absolute chicanery may be the biscuit that you need to take. Let’s drop this little ditty into the latest slot of the What the Hell Did I Just Watch? files. In our Film Swap Challenge series, our reviewers assign each other films to write about: films that one writer enjoys or values, and the other writer hasn’t seen – and which might be slightly out of their comfort zone! Here, Leslie Byron Pitt is challenged to write about Split Second by Shaun Rodger.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |