Desperate Hours (1990)

Lawyer Nancy Breyers (Kelly Lynch) is defending robber and murderer Michael Bosworth (Mickey Rourke) for killing a guard in prison. She helps him escape but she falls behind. Albert (David Morse) and his brother Wally Bosworth (Elias Koteas) drive the getaway. Brenda Chandler (Lindsay Crouse) releases Nancy to track down Bosworth. Tim (Anthony Hopkins) and Nora Cornell (Mimi Rogers) are splitting up their family with their children (Shawnee Smith, Danny Gerard). He's broken up with his girlfriend and looking to reunite but she insists on selling the house. Michael and his men take over the house and keep the Cornells hostage. He makes contact with Nancy as he waits for her to join them.

Director Michael Cimino remakes the 1955 film. He's trying way too hard to be stylish. Some of the acting is too over-the-top. If he could dial some of it back, the movie could be an intense crime thriller. Micky Rourke can be an intense bad guy without any help but Cimino insists on pushing it. Everybody is overacting. The worst is probably Lindsay Crouse. Cimino is using every camera move and dramatic music. It's a little ridiculous to release Nancy but the call to her apartment is a little more ridiculous. The cops could easily be listening on the other end. It's not as if the message is in code. The movie could have been great but Cimino's relentlessness squanders the work of some great actors.

Fmovies: I am a big Mickey Rourke fan from his string of hits in the 80's. I kind of fell off the bandwagon during the 90's, finding his choice of films to be somewhat uninspiring. Still a great actor, just seemed to be having some trouble picking quality projects. Seeing 'Sin City' brought me back (great role, great acting, great film!), so I picked up 'Desperate Hours' and watched it last night. While the supporting characters could have been better written (Kelly Lynch & Mimi Rogers' characters fell flat), the scenes between Rourke & Anthony Hopkins were wonderful! Elias Koteas as Rourke's brother was forgettable, but David Morse's character of Albert was very interesting. Somewhat like a big dumb 'Lenny' to Rourke's 'George'. Like another reviewer I was reminded of Humphrey Bogart's 'Duke Mantee' in the 1936 film 'Petrified Forest', but Rourke's 'Michael Bosworth' was a little more homicidal and more of a loose cannon. If you like Rourke & Hopkins, you will enjoy watching 'Desperate Hours.'

Once, Michael Cimino was a great director. Now, he's just a Hollywood joke.

Why?

Here's a good example.

"Desperate Hours" is a remake of a similar movie which starred Humphrey Bogart. I've never seen the original. Wish I could say the same about the remake.

Rourke plays the mad dog killer this time out, who is on the lam with his attorney (Lynch, who should probably sue Cimino for defamation of character) and holes up with his cronies in the house of a distant man (Hopkins) and his equally distant family. Screams, fights, violence and blood all share equal screen time.

Then Crouse shows up to head the manhunt for Rourke and every last shred of belief jumps out the window to escape her. Are FBI agents really this stupid? Don't they have entrance exams? Isn't it against the law to endanger innocent peoiple just to capture an escaped convict? Isn't it? Didn't Cimino and his writers suspect as much?

Wait, I forget: this is the same man who made "Heaven's Gate".

This is, without a doubt, one of the most blatantly stupid, tasteless, egomaniacal trips through Idiot-Land I've even seen since "Dumb and Dumber". But at least THAT one was supposed to be funny.

No stars. Not a one. Watching "Desperate Hours" is like witnessing a car accident, only more painful and with more victims.

Desperate Hours fmovies. This movie is an embarrassment. It should never have been released. It should have been consigned to the stuporous netherworld of HBO reruns. Mickey Rourke and Anthony Hopkins are redoubtable talents, but they require a firm directorial hand to deliver satisfying performances. That hand is absent here. Hopkin's accent varies all over the place, and his theatrical bellowing is in weird contrast to the serpentine hissing of Rourke. The relation between him and his brother is never fleshed out; this was the most emotionally satisfying aspect of the Humphrey Bogart- Dewey Martin relationship in the classic movie. Lindsay Crouse, as a dippy Southern accented FBI agent, conjures up outlandish ad hoc schemes which cannot be understood by the viewer and perhaps were not understood even by the scriptwriter. The struggles, the theatrics, the emotion-tinged outbursts seem improvised. The sole actor to escape unscathed is Philadelphia's own David Morse, although an unintended moment of high comedy is provided when, after disposing out of a body and drenched with his own and the other's blood, he stumbles out of a creek to encounter two nubile lasses loading merchandise into a pickup. "What college do you go to?" he asks brightly.

After the financial disaster that was HEAVEN'S GATE, Michael Cimino was on a warpath to prove he was still a legitimate filmmaker. He subsequently made the overwrought YEAR OF THE DRAGON, THE SICILIAN and a remake of DESPERATE HOURS in the 1980s. All of those films bombed at the B.O. and his credibility never really recovered. Of all three films he directed in the 80s, DESPERATE HOURS is, by far, the worst. The movie is bad, bad, bad. The movie actually reflects its title. It's truly desperate.

Like the director, the film wants to be taken seriously and yet it's woefully misguided with overwrought acting, leaden direction that rarely makes any sense and a script that's totally outdated and is divorced from logic. As I've said, the movie wants to be taken seriously but every attempt of seriousness is quickly shot down with remarkably ludicrous details. For instance, when David Morse is alone in the wilderness and he's running away from the police, the whole moment is (oddly) directed with reverence but then, as Morse is heading towards a gas station, he meets two buxom bimbos who are dressed in such ridiculous clothes (they look like they just stepped out of a Playboy spread) that the director's attempt at reverence is destroyed by the unexpected sight of those two women who just didn't belong in the movie. I'm sure someone got laid from hiring those two women. Arf!

And then there's the whole way Kelly Lynch is treated in the movie. What an embarrassing role. She didn't deserve to be treated like that. I love Leonard Maltin's description of what is done to her character: kamikaze disrobing.

But topping everything, even the dreadful music or scenery chewing from Mickey Rourke or Anthony Hopkins, is Lindsay Crouse's performance, which can only be described as being out of this world. The way she talks, enunciates her dialogue, the way her character is directed, well, the whole thing is totally perplexing. I've tried to come up with a way to describe her acting/role but I can't. Remember Dolores Fuller's acting in GLEN OR GLENDA? Well, Lindsay Crouse must have taken some lessons from Dolores because her acting is identical. Personally speaking, Lindsay Crouse's acting in DH ranks up there as one of the weirdest performances ever put on screen.

I haven't seen the original version of DESPERATE HOURS but I can't imagine it's remotely close to being as dreadful as Michael Cimino's version.

Horrible remake of a Humphrey Bogart film. Mickey Rourke plays a criminal who escapes from jail with help from his lawyer (Kelly Lynch). He decides to hide out in the house of a heavily dysfunctional family (played by Mimi Rogers, Anthony Hopkins and Shawnee Smith). Lindsay Crouse pops up as a police chief trying to capture him.

I caught this in a theatre back in 1990 and, try as I might, I can't forget how TERRIBLE this film was! Director Michael Cimino frankly can't direct. "The Deer Hunter" was a fluke. After that he did "Heaven's Gate", "Year of the Dragon, "The Sicilian" and this--all box office bombs. The direction in this is beyond belief. Badly lit, terribly staged and weird camera angles. He single-handedly destroys any visual quality the film might have had. The plot is bad--full of loopholes and bad dialogue. The acting couldn't be worse. You have talented actors like Lynch, Rogers and especially Hopkins giving their all time worst performances. Rourke and Crouse never could act so their bad acting is expected. Worst of all was Smith. She is so incredibly annoying you'll be rooting for Rourke to shoot her dead! This was quickly forgotten and (thankfully) has stayed that way. Avoid.