Dead on Time (1983) Poster

(1983)

User Reviews

Review this title
3 Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
6/10
What Would You Do With Your Last 30 Minutes?
SendiTolver11 August 2018
'Dead on Time' is short comedy starring Rowan Atkinson as Bernard Fripp, a man whose doctor tells him that he has barely 30 minutes to live. The premise is not so original (as it is hardly in any other case), but such material could offer many amusing moments, and that is what 'Dead on Time' does, but unfortunately not too much. It is not badly written 30 minutes of comedy, but one expects much more from writers such as Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson himself. It was nice to see how some of Atkinson's comedic trademarks already there.

Still, as a huge Atkinson's fan, I found these thirty minutes quite enjoyable and not a time wasted. If these would have been my last 30 minutes, then using them to watch this film, wouldn't be that much of a waste.
7 out of 8 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
4/10
Not really funny, good or inspired in my opinion
Horst_In_Translation30 July 2017
Warning: Spoilers
"Dead on Time" is a British comedy short film from 1983, so this one will have its 35th anniversary next year. It runs for slightly over an hour and one of the two writers is Rowan Atkinson, who is of course also the lead actor. This is one of his early works as he was still under the age of 30 and did not play his career-defining roles as Blackadder and of course Mr. Bean yet. I may be bit biased as I am probably not the biggest Atkinson fan as I really only liked 1 or 2 Mr. Bean clips from the stuff I have seen from him. Okay, back to this one here: He plays a man who finds out he has only 30 minutes to live or does he really. The events at the end felt somewhat boring, predictable and uninspired and yet these are the only scenes when the black humor is at least slightly working. I must say that hardly anything was funny in here, which is indeed a disappointment as the co-writer is Richard Curtis and I normally like his stuff more and he worked on this one here a long time before his Oscar nomination. Director is Lyndall Hobbs and I and probably almost everybody else won't recognize her name. British audiences may have heard the names of some supporting players though, like Hawthorne's, Everett' or Bull's. But they cannot get this one to work either. For the very biggest Atkinson fans only and I give it a thumbs-down.
0 out of 6 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
9/10
Funny, short, poignant, family film
colinwhiteley13 February 2006
Warning: Spoilers
I saw this short film in around 1990 and I thought it was utterly brilliant, but I haven't been able to trace it since!

The story revolves around Bernard Fripp(Atkinson) who is wrongly diagnosed by his doctor(Hawthorne) as having only 24 hours to live.

This sets Bernard bumbling off on a mission to live life to the full, pursuing Greta Scaachi around the town, trying to make peace with God (via the slowest vicar ever, Broadbent), listening to all his unheard favorite music (in Our Price), and asking Leslie Ash if she has time for some "love, or something?".

All this comes to a predictable but poignant end, leaving the viewer wondering if the previous half hour was the most worthwhile of their life...

I would dearly love to see this film again, but it's on an elusiveness par with "Bernard and the Genie" (also starring Atkinson). Come on BBC we'd pay good money for this stuff!!!
16 out of 18 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

See also

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews


Recently Viewed