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7 Seconds
2005 - R - 101 Mins.
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| Director: Simon Fellows | | Producer: Alwyn Kushner | | Written By: Martin Wheeler | | Starring: Wesley Snipes, Tamzin Outhwaite, Tamer Hassan, Georgina Rylance |
| Review by: Joe Rickey |
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In '7 Seconds' Wesley Snipes plays a longtime thief who accidentally makes off with a priceless Van Gogh which leads competing criminals to kidnap his partner. Desperate rescue mission ensues. By the way, how does one make off with a priceless painting and not know it? Especially someone who considers themselves a master thief? I guess one is not supposed to ask such questions when discussing a direct-to-video offering starring an actor whose best days appear to be behind him.
Action films thrive on energy and intrigue, two facets that '7 Seconds' lacks. The film throws in an action sequence, whether it be a car chase or a fight, every few minutes in a vain attempt to spice things up but the problem with said scenes is that they often go on for far too long, thus losing their "newness" and instead becoming repetitive and elongated beyond compare. The film is simply unable to keep the energy at a consistently high level as director Simon Fellows even appears to lose interest in the proceedings (!). The film becomes rudimentary when it becomes all too apparent that everyone is just going through the motions, coasting until they can wrap the film and move onto their next project. The non-action scenes where the film gives a half-hearted attempt at creating a plot and characters worth caring about fare even worse as the previously mentioned "coasting" actors are forced to actually speak; spouting incessantly inane lines of drivel concerning priceless paintings and heists. During these scenes director Fellows fail to lend the film anything resembling mood or suspense, the death knell for a film such as this one.
As one can probably gather, the film doesn't exactly boast strong performances from anyone in the cast. Wesley Snipes, in the lead, is in slumming mode. The actor appears content to exist in a holding pattern as he waits for his next role in a film that garners theatrical release. One would think he would want to avoid heading down the same road as such "stars" as Steven Seagal, Dolph Lundgren, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Starring in drivel such as this isn't helping matters. As for his costars, unknown Tamzin Outhwaite plays the reluctant partner of Snipes' character and brings what energy she can to her almost nonexistent (as written) role. The rest of the cast is filled with equally unknown actors playing the multitude of one-note villains who don't make much of an impression but it's not as if they exactly had much to work with in the first place.
The technical credits are par for the course, especially considering the direct-to-video nature of the product. Director Fellows also handles the cinematography and it certainly seems as if there isn't a camera trick he didn't like and editor Kant Pan doesn't help matters with an editing job that could charitably be called "slapdash" at best.
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