Written by Don Bohlinger, James Nathan, and Bruce Franklin Singer
Directed by Rick King
For every actor there are films that make them wince when they look back on it, and I’m sure some even wonder what they were thinking at the time. There are a couple of actors who could say that about The Killing Time.
A very young Kiefer Sutherland stars as a killer who in the first scene murders someone in cold blood, buries him, then takes off with the man’s identification and car. Posing as Brian Martz, he wanders into the town of Santa Alba which has its own secrets. Sam (portrayed by Beau Bridges) is about to be promoted to the new sheriff as the old one, Carl (portrayed by Joe Don Baker), is retiring. Sam is having an affair with Laura (portrayed by Camelia Kath) wife of a local real estate magnate, Jake (portrayed by Wayne Rogers).
Laura believes Jake has tried to kill her already and made it look like an accident. Just as she’s trying to draw Sam in further with her suspicions about her husband, “Brian” arrives on the scene and announces that he’s the new deputy.
The biggest problem with The Killing Time is that there are no “good” characters, with the possible exception of Carl. Laura and Sam are having an affair and plotting to kill Jake, who’s not such a nice guy either. Bryan has killed a man in cold blood, but Sam and Laura believe they are setting up an innocent person for Jake’s murder and do so with little guilt on their part.
The acting isn’t all that great. Beau Bridges doesn’t seem to really figure out his character as he treads both sides of the law and seems to want the audience’s sympathy but never gets it. He’s got more of a deer-in-the-headlights look in this film rather than being believable. The same is true of Kath who comes across the exact opposite of how I think I was supposed to feel about her. Even Sutherland is schizophrenic here as he’s good when he’s the dark killer, but never is quite believable as his good character is the flip side of the same coin. It just seems as if he’s acting in two totally different characters rather than some blend of the two.
The ins and outs of the writing have a ton of potential as the story is a decent one, it just wasn’t pulled off in a believable way. I don’t know if what was filmed was an edited script or if it’s strictly due to poor performances pulled from the actors, but either way, The Killing Time had a lot more potential on the surface that was never realized.
Share this:
Categories: Movie Reviews
If a film goes awry as badly as this one seems to have, the fault lies more in the hands of the screenwriter and director rather than the cast. I recognize most of the actors in “The Killing Time,” and they’re not usually poor performers. I’m willing to bet that director Rick King and his writers just weren’t up to the task of giving the actors something worthy of their skills as thespians.
Interestingly, Camelia Kath was married to Kiefer Sutherland when “The Killing Time” was made. She doesn’t seem to have had a stellar acting career; per IMDb, that was the last film she appeared in before becoming a behind-the-scenes writer/producer.
In these cases, I usually suspect that the initial script looked quite different than what ended up being filmed. That, unfortunately, happens quite often. The actors sign on for one thing and end up filming another, and if they’re not A-list, there’s not much they can do about it.
There is, of course, another factor to consider. Acting is a gig-based career, and (based on what I know of the biz), there are many times when even A-list thespians take roles they don’t necessarily like so they can pay their bills. Of course, this is more true of character actors who are best known as supporting cast members rather than “stars,” but sometimes even legendary actors (such as Laurence Olivier or Alec Guinness) take whatever parts they can, even if they’re in awful movies. (Olivier once played Gen. Douglas MacArthur in a horrible Korean film, “Inchon,” back when we were both in high school.)