Directed by Ernie Barbarash. Starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Neal McDonough and Austin Abrams. Thriller/Supernatural. USA. 2010. Cert 18.

Release Date 10th January 2011.

Ticking Clock tells the tale of crime writer Lewis Hicks who after finding one of his friends murdered by a serial killer, pursues them and in the chase manages to pick up a journal detailing all the killers previous victims and most importantly his future targets.

I have to say I was not enthralled when this landed on my doorstep, even before I had pressed open on my DVD player I had reservations about wether this was going to be any good. The plot sounded wobbly, the acting line up was more Hollyoaks than Hollywood, the directors previous work didn’t fill me with optimism and the whole thing just looked like it was missing Steven Seagal to complete a very dodgy viewing experience.

But I do tend to believe in giving things a chance, maybe there was something that could redeem it from budget price mediocrity and as it all kicked off it felt like my initial optimism was soon to be cruelly dampened.

The story tells of serial killer Keene whom Lewis Hicks finds in the house of one of his friends whilst in the act of killing her. Eventually realising he should pursue the aforementioned killer, he does so and traps him in an alley. Following a very poorly acted fight, the killer manages to escape but in doing so drops his journal, a leather bound book containing details of his previous kills and his future intended targets which Hicks then finds the following day. Taking it home he discovers the killer grisly past and his future plans but Keene manages to track Hicks down to his home and yet another poorly scripted fight breaks out and the killer managers to retrieve his journal.

Still awake? Ok, let’s carry on (it does get better, promise!)

As Hicks is obviously a super sleuth, he finds engraved into a piece of paper the names he had previously written down of the killers next victims. Taking it to the police, they disbelieve him and even start to believe that Hicks may be responsible for murder himself. In the meantime he has tracked down the killers next intended victim who doesn’t believe him when she is accosted in the street but after helping fix her car, she agrees to meet him later that day. Turning up at her home, he then finds that she has anxiety issues about meeting people and yet she is out at a local bar on her own??

Yet again the killer is there and as she goes off, the killer follows her with Hicks in not-so-hot pursuit but again he is too late and he manages to kill her at the exact date and time it had stated in the journal.

I’m not gonna bore you too much with the rest of it suffice to say Hicks then gets his friends in on the act to analyse a piece of the killers jacket which he found at his home only to find it is made of an unknown fibre that can expand and shrink at will. His DNA analysis friend also notes that the killers DNA is the same as that of a young boy at a local orphanage and here is where it just veers off into total lunacy. Austin Abrams as James is probably the only person who can truly act in this film and he deserves a mention here.

I don’t want to say too much as it will spoil the crazy, bonkers, supernatural time travelling nonsense of this films story and believe me when I say it is one of the most ludicrous things I have been ever asked to believe in any film I have ever seen before or probably will again.

So why 3 stars? Well you know what, Ticking Clock is a whole lot of fun, get past some of the ropey acting, the ludicrous story, the ineffective cops, a lack of decent gore, some very shoddy cgi effects that look like they were knocked up in the 1980s and a very unscary killer and you are left with something so bad that is actually becomes good. It is enjoyable for its silliness and if you can just suspend your disbelief at what you are seeing it does make for a fun ride.

I’d recommend it for this reason alone, it’s not Se7en by any means and it doesn’t deserve its 18 rating. But if you want a bit of fun, a throw away 90 odd minutes and a story that you just won’t even believe anyone in their right mind could possibly have written then give this a try.

Kris Keogh.

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