Crimetime
1996 Directed by George Sluizer
Synopsis
The star of a TV crime reenactment show becomes caught up in the mind of the killer he is playing.
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Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"
Having made his name with the brooding Dutch drama The Vanishing, director George Sluizer went on to all-but-destroy that reputation with his own critically-reviled Hollywood remake. He followed that misstep with another in the form of 1996’s Crimetime, an intelligently conceived but appallingly executed crime thriller starring Steven Baldwin as an actor on a television reconstruction programme for whom the lines between reality and fiction begin to blur. There’s much to be explored in this concept, and Sluizer seems for a while to mine the material for the considerable depth it offers, but tonal uncertainty, uneven casting, and surprisingly shoddy filmmaking sees all promise rapidly evaporate. Baldwin is a perfectly decent…
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Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand"
Having made his name with the brooding Dutch drama The Vanishing, director George Sluizer went on to all-but-destroy that reputation with his own critically-reviled Hollywood remake. He followed that misstep with another in the form of 1996’s Crimetime, an intelligently conceived but appallingly executed crime thriller starring Steven Baldwin as an actor on a television reconstruction programme for whom the lines between reality and fiction begin to blur. There’s much to be explored in this concept, and Sluizer seems for a while to mine the material for the considerable depth it offers, but tonal uncertainty, uneven casting, and surprisingly shoddy filmmaking sees all promise rapidly evaporate. Baldwin is a perfectly decent…
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Really wish I could say I liked it, but this is a sadly incompetent piece of filmmaking from somebody who could and should do so much better. What makes it such a shame is the potential of the original concept, positing a crime reenactment actor seeming to slowly become the murderer he portrays. Stephen Baldwin's performance has its moments, but like the rest of the cast (save a typically excellent Pete Postlethwaite) it's pretty damn weak. The indecision between psychological thriller, romantic drama, and comic satire really tears this apart, leaving very little indeed to be enjoyed.