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      Time to Kill

      R 1990 1 hr. 43 min. Drama List
      Reviews 19% 100+ Ratings Audience Score A soldier (Nicolas Cage) in Africa leaves his camp in need of a dentist, but an act of passion leads to bizarre events. Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

      View All (4) audience reviews
      Audience Member Not to be mistaken with "A time to kill". This film looked as if it was filmed with only 1 camera. More than likely a handicam. Shall I elaborate further? Didn't think so. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Actors are only human... sometimes, they make mistakes just like the rest of us! Bobby DeNiro in ROCKY & BULLWINKLE... Eddie Murphy in PLUTO NASH... Jean Reno in WASABI... Sean Connery in HIGHLANDER II... With a filmography already boasting such well known films as PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED... RAISING ARIZONA... MOONSTRUCK... and WILD AT HEART, it seems extremely strange that Nicolas Cage would even conceive for even a moment, of packing everything up to go and shoot this 1991, Italian production. "TEMPO DI UCCIDERE" - (TIME TO KILL) just might be Nicolas Cage's "ROCKY & BULLWINKLE" except that apart from horrific production values (for which... I'm sorry 1990-era Italy... you have no excuse for)...TIME TO KILL has some positive and effective elements to speak of. TIME TO KILL is a very interesting little showcase for Nic Cage to actually demonstrate a bit of "acting" for us, before he went on to become the ridiculous, self-parody we know him as today. Cage plays a care-free officer in Italian occupied Africa during the start of World War II. A toothache serves as the catalyst for a series of events that alter and effect his character in such a way as to eventually form this "Psychosomatic" morality play. Cage plays well against the magnificent African backdrop and veteran actor Giancarlo Giannini is along to help Cage shine and offer an element of aloof humour to the story... but the film suffers from poor-ish editing and horrific colour grading and all of this tends to distract from what really could have been an excellent film in the hands of a more accomplished crew. Even the usually outstanding and eternally reliable Ennio Morricone barely manages to supply us with anything even remotely resembling a soundtrack... A real shame! I realise that TIME TO KILL is out of print and extremely difficult to find on DVD... so on some level, I have to say that I'm glad to have located a copy. Despite some strong performances however, TIME TO KILL is an interesting film that manages to capture attention for all the wrong reasons. A curiosity at best... Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/26/23 Full Review Audience Member I suspect that the target audience for <i>Time to Kill</i> is mainly Nicolas Cage completists like myself, those lucky few who have spent months scouring their local video rental stores and Netflixes for films starring Nic, and have finally found that they only have one movie left starring the Cagemaster and that one is an obscure Italian film that is out-of-print and therefore only available for purchase online. Well, here it is. Cage plays Enrico Silvestri, an Italian soldier stationed in Ethiopia (apparently in 1936, according to the Flixter synopsis). Suffering from a painful toothache, Silvestri heads off to find a dentist but gets side-tracked when his driver gets into an automobile accident. A man tells Silvestri of a shortcut to the dentist's camp: just follow the trail until you get to the lake, which is where you will see the road leading to the camp. Real easy. But when he loses the trail, Silvestri instead stumbles upon a young African woman named Mariam and, much as any of us would, rapes her. But like most rapists do, Silvestri falls in a sort of half-love with Mariam and the two share some raw eggs and a cave together. One thing leads to another, and when Silvestri returns to camp he has a large gash on his hand. He attributes it to having fallen during his trek to the lake, but when he later learns that certain women from the Ethiopian villages have leprosy, he begins to worry that maybe his fling may have given him that deadly disease. Of course, due to some unforeseen circumstances involved with Mariam and to the fact that lepers are herded into their own little colonies away from the rest of mankind, Silvestri must keep his affliction a secret while trying to find out whether he really is suffering from the disease and how he can get back home to Italy without being noticed. The movie is very slow going near the beginning, but as Silvestri's paranoia begins to take hold of him, the tension ramps up. He loses the ability to trust anyone, and his previously relaxed demeanor is replaced with boiling anger. He treats the locals like they are idiots, and he treats his fellow soldiers as though they are enemies. Despite the fact that <i>Time to Kill</i> actually does end up having a sort of interesting Roald Dahl-ish plot going on, the movie is hampered by its uniformly monochrome settings. The sun is beating down on the countryside continuously, bright light on the tan shades of sand and clothing and skin. It's not hard to get lost in the monotony of the scenery. Also, the ending takes a sharp detour that effectively explains nothing and seems like it was tacked on and then cut in half without much regard to the result. After working up all the effort to stay connected with the story, it is quite distressing to be handed a half-hearted ending like the one that this movie provides. There really are some good things about <i>Time to Kill</i>, but they are far outnumbered by the frustrating and boring things. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/15/23 Full Review Audience Member This is a horrible movie. The one bright spot is when Nicolas Cage gives a cigarette to an iguana. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Movie Info

      Synopsis A soldier (Nicolas Cage) in Africa leaves his camp in need of a dentist, but an act of passion leads to bizarre events.
      Director
      Giuliano Montaldo
      Screenwriter
      Giuliano Montaldo, Furio Scarpelli, Giacomo Scarpelli, Paolo Virzì
      Rating
      R
      Genre
      Drama
      Original Language
      English