Dead In A Heartbeat (Cable movie)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: D Cable movie: C-
Some
films made for cable/pay/satellite TV are so bad, they bring back the bad old
days, but others are so bad they should just rot. The TBS cable movie Dead in a Heartbeat (2002) is so bad, that if it were any worse, it
would be outright degrading. Instead, it
is just amusingly bad enough to show how desperate, lame and exploitive mostly
all of Turner’s networks could be before Time Warner bought them out.
The title
refers to pacemakers being turned into bombs, though it could define this lame
screenplay, the tired child-in-jeopardy garbage here, and the wacky casting of
Judge Reinhold as a bomb expert and Penelope Ann Miller as a surgeon who is the
target of revenge. Faster than you can
say Speed and Die Hard, people are falling and they can’t get up, because they
have had their chests blown out by another madman. However, he is so shallowly developed that it
sets back the cause of mental health with every frame.
The
actors are not the worst leads we have ever seen, and they look great as
compared to the parade of big screen bozos we have been getting lately, but
this is a disaster. Except for the fact
that I like them, the film is a waste of our time and theirs. Unless you like them far more than me, skip
this one.
The full
frame image is in color and nothing too impressive, but it is at least
clean. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
sound has fair Pro Logic surrounds, which make the bad music all the worse. Except for profiles of the leads, there are
no extras.
Recently,
when looking at the new Pat Benatar Music Video collection, I was reminded that
Reinhold had been one of the U.S. pilots going after the Nazi’s in
her classic clip for Shadows of the Night. The Nazi radio operator is even played by
Bill Paxton! There is no single minute
of this film that is as entertaining as that video, so get the Benatar set
instead if you want to see Reinhold that badly.
As for Miller, The Shadow
(1995) is looking better and better.
- Nicholas Sheffo
