TICKER (Joe Carnahan, 2002)
[short film; download it here]
Reviewed: 11/7/02

Ticker's premise is overwrought and mildly idiotic, recycling elements from John Frankenheimer's BMW flick Ambush (the Driver -- Clive Owen's recurring BMW character -- transporting a package-as-MacGuffin), but at least Ambush was straightforward enough to wisely wear its thrills-first mentality on its sleeve, instead of trying to ham-handedly justify itself with laughable saving-a-nation platitudes. Also ripped from Ambush is the idea of the Driver having to transport a package of questionable worth; in Ambush this conceit had a nice little taste of moral ambiguity as opposed to all the for-the-good-of-mankind nonsense here. (Carnahan is also not above swiping from Alejandro González Iñárritu's BMW film Powder Keg and its non-Westernized country's guerilla jingoism). The flashback intercutting doesn't work at all: totally distracting, muddled and pointless, clearly at play just for its own sake. Carnahan's dialogue is way over-the-top ("What is the life of one man worth? Millions more?"), and I found it particularly ludicrous that the Driver stops for so long to have drawn-out moments of conversation with Don Cheadle (on the bridge) while the helicopter is in hot pursuit (the helicopter then oh-so-conveniently disposed of, mind). This glorified advertisement is a bad omen, making me worry about the quality of Carnahan's upcoming feature titled Narc.

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