It was written and directed by Avi Nesher.
Eddy Kay (Michael Biehn) is a quiet inoffensive watchmaker who happens to rescue a woman trapped in a burning building. The story makes the TV news and seeing Eddy Kay is quite a shock to Colonel Taylor (Richard Jordan). Eddy Kay is dead.
Taylor works for one of those rather sinister covert agencies. If Eddy Kay is alive that could cause problems. It is important to make this problem go away. One of the agency’s top assassins is sent to carry out the assignment.
The odd thing is that Eddy survives. That’s odd because the assassin is a pro. No ordinary guy has the survival skills to get out of such a situation alive. But Eddy does survive.
Eddy has met a nice young woman, Dr Anna Nolmar (Patsy Kensit). He’s repairing an antique watch for her. She’s a psychotherapist.
Eddy has been having odd and very disturbing flashbacks but they’re not really flashbacks because these are memories of things that never happened to him. At least he’s pretty sure they never happened.
Anna is interested, especially when she runs some tests. The brain scans come back normal, or at least mostly normal. There does appear to be very slight damage to the hippocampus.
And then all hell breaks loose. Eddy knows that people are definitely trying to kill him but he doesn’t know why, and he doesn’t know how he keeps surviving.
If only he knew what those flashbacks meant.
Anna is along for the ride whether she likes it or not and she can’t decide if she’s terrified of Eddy or wants to mother him.
An enormous amount of mayhem follows and the violence gets quite brutal. Lots of innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire. There are some very bad people involved and they have no moral scruples. This movie doesn’t pull its punches in that respect.
The pacing is frenetic and the action scenes are well-mounted and exciting and pleasingly excessive.
This seems like it’s going to be a standard paranoia action movie but there’s a major science fiction element that gradually comes to the fore. And the movie starts to get wilder and as it gets wilder it gets better.
Apparently the producers wanted either Jean-Claude Van Damme or Chuck Norris as Eddy but while Van Damme might have worked Michael Biehn is a much better choice because he’s a less obvious action hero and he’s more convincing as a regular fairly nice guy who is not only confused but a bit frightened. He still does cool action hero stuff (in fact lots of it) but we believe that he’s only doing it in order to survive, and to save the girl.
Patsy Kensit is likeable and believable even if she’s a bit young to be a top-flight psychotherapist.
There’s some frontal nudity and a surprisingly explicit sex scene.
There’s a thematic link to a much better known earlier movie but to tell you the name of that movie would reveal a spoiler.
The visuals are quite impressive with some cool sets and this is the pre-CGI era so the special effects guys had to rely on imagination instead.
Timebomb had a limited theatrical release so it’s not quite a direct-to-video production. It attracted little attention at the time but has since deservedly gained a strong cult following.
Timebomb is a crazy ride and it’s highly recommended. And it looks great on Blu-Ray.
Eddy Kay (Michael Biehn) is a quiet inoffensive watchmaker who happens to rescue a woman trapped in a burning building. The story makes the TV news and seeing Eddy Kay is quite a shock to Colonel Taylor (Richard Jordan). Eddy Kay is dead.
Taylor works for one of those rather sinister covert agencies. If Eddy Kay is alive that could cause problems. It is important to make this problem go away. One of the agency’s top assassins is sent to carry out the assignment.
The odd thing is that Eddy survives. That’s odd because the assassin is a pro. No ordinary guy has the survival skills to get out of such a situation alive. But Eddy does survive.
Eddy has met a nice young woman, Dr Anna Nolmar (Patsy Kensit). He’s repairing an antique watch for her. She’s a psychotherapist.
Eddy has been having odd and very disturbing flashbacks but they’re not really flashbacks because these are memories of things that never happened to him. At least he’s pretty sure they never happened.
Anna is interested, especially when she runs some tests. The brain scans come back normal, or at least mostly normal. There does appear to be very slight damage to the hippocampus.
And then all hell breaks loose. Eddy knows that people are definitely trying to kill him but he doesn’t know why, and he doesn’t know how he keeps surviving.
If only he knew what those flashbacks meant.
Anna is along for the ride whether she likes it or not and she can’t decide if she’s terrified of Eddy or wants to mother him.
An enormous amount of mayhem follows and the violence gets quite brutal. Lots of innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire. There are some very bad people involved and they have no moral scruples. This movie doesn’t pull its punches in that respect.
The pacing is frenetic and the action scenes are well-mounted and exciting and pleasingly excessive.
This seems like it’s going to be a standard paranoia action movie but there’s a major science fiction element that gradually comes to the fore. And the movie starts to get wilder and as it gets wilder it gets better.
Apparently the producers wanted either Jean-Claude Van Damme or Chuck Norris as Eddy but while Van Damme might have worked Michael Biehn is a much better choice because he’s a less obvious action hero and he’s more convincing as a regular fairly nice guy who is not only confused but a bit frightened. He still does cool action hero stuff (in fact lots of it) but we believe that he’s only doing it in order to survive, and to save the girl.
Patsy Kensit is likeable and believable even if she’s a bit young to be a top-flight psychotherapist.
There’s some frontal nudity and a surprisingly explicit sex scene.
There’s a thematic link to a much better known earlier movie but to tell you the name of that movie would reveal a spoiler.
The visuals are quite impressive with some cool sets and this is the pre-CGI era so the special effects guys had to rely on imagination instead.
Timebomb had a limited theatrical release so it’s not quite a direct-to-video production. It attracted little attention at the time but has since deservedly gained a strong cult following.
Timebomb is a crazy ride and it’s highly recommended. And it looks great on Blu-Ray.
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