This movie is an embarrassment. It should never have been released. It should have been consigned to the stuporous netherworld of HBO reruns. Mickey Rourke and Anthony Hopkins are redoubtable talents, but they require a firm directorial hand to deliver satisfying performances. That hand is absent here. Hopkin's accent varies all over the place, and his theatrical bellowing is in weird contrast to the serpentine hissing of Rourke. The relation between him and his brother is never fleshed out; this was the most emotionally satisfying aspect of the Humphrey Bogart- Dewey Martin relationship in the classic movie. Lindsay Crouse, as a dippy Southern accented FBI agent, conjures up outlandish ad hoc schemes which cannot be understood by the viewer and perhaps were not understood even by the scriptwriter. The struggles, the theatrics, the emotion-tinged outbursts seem improvised. The sole actor to escape unscathed is Philadelphia's own David Morse, although an unintended moment of high comedy is provided when, after disposing out of a body and drenched with his own and the other's blood, he stumbles out of a creek to encounter two nubile lasses loading merchandise into a pickup. "What college do you go to?" he asks brightly.
Review of Desperate Hours
