User Reviews

Those wishing to see film noir remakes, should not see this as as a remake, you will always be disappointed. Instead, enjoy a gripping performance from Dennis Quaid and visual imagery to commend. The colour drains from the film (literally, not metaphorically!)) as the plot gathers pace, and the dialogue is crisp and gritty. The opening dialogue is clever, and the viewer is carried along by a sharp screenplay and a real, original film noir feel,

Someone poisoned named Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid as an unsettling college professor) and he's got to find out who . He's got to find out why . He's got to find out now . In 24 hours, he'll be Dead On Arrival. He along with a friend student (Meg Ryan) frantically seek who is responsible and why he was targeted for death . His search for the suspect is further complicated by the fact that he is being sought by the police on phony charges of killing .

Mediocre remake of the 1949 Noir film that contains thrills , suspense , a complex intrigue and plot twists . The starring , Dennis Quaid , relates his own lethal murder become himself in detective and spend his ending moments trying to uncover his hit men . As his time runs out,he has only hours to identify , he desperately seeks to discover who is responsible his death . The search for the suspect is further complicated by the facts of numerous turns , deceits and a twisted intrigue . Passable acting by Dennis Quaid as a teacher becomes embroiled in a series of murders involving people around him and supported by Meg Ryan as a likable but reluctant student , both of whom married after shooting , though nowadays are separated themselves. Supporting cast in frankly enjoyable , such as Charlotte Rampling , Daniel Stern , Jane Kaczmarek , Christopher Neame , Robert Knepper , Jay Patterson and the deceased Brion James .

Colorful cinematography throughout the story , the color in the film begins to drain to monochrome, thus representing the central character's deteriorating health as the poison steadily takes it's toll until it is in black and white as in the opening - presumably showing the flashback catching up to the current time-line of the story . Screeching and inappropriate musical score composed by means of synthesizer .The motion picture was middlingly directed by Rocky Morton ans Annabel Jenkel , the same people who brought ¨Max Headrom¨to TV series . This story results to be a remake from ¨DOA¨ (1969) a dark B-thriller directed by Rudolph Mate with Edmond O'Brien , Luther Adler and Pamela Britton . It was also followed by a inferior remake as ¨Color me dead¨(1969) by Eddie Davis with Tom Tryon , Carolyn Jones and Rick Jason

D.O.A. (1988) *** Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Charlotte Rampling, Daniel Stern. Fast-paced and nifty remake of the 1949 classic about a man being poisoned with time his factor as he tries to solve his own murder. Quaid is top-notch as a college English professor trying to figure out just who his enemies are and Ryan is plucky student aiding him. Cool camera movements and some fine direction from the creators of tv's "Max Headroom", Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel.

This movie is an awesome remake of the original by the same title. The movie was cool,despite the fact, I hate new ones! All of the cast was awesome . It has great cast and an awesome plot!! The main plot is a man is poisoned and he has to solve his own murder , neat eh?!Dennis Quaid is the man who is "D.O.A"(in other words Dead On Arrival).He finds help with his friends, but everyone is now a suspect!!Dennis's character has several hours to find out who poisoned him. The movie is quite fast and full of action. You can see two other big stars in Meg Ryan(City Of Angels,Courage Under Fire) and Daniel Stern(Home Alone, Very Bad Things,Bushwhacked) in supporting roles in this awesome ,cool remake of a classic movie!!

Dennis Quaid plays Dexter Cornell, an author turned literacy professor going through a very rough 48 hours or so. His prize student, Nick Lang (Rob Knepper), seems to commit suicide, his estranged wife (Jane Kaczmarek) serves him with divorce papers, and he wakes up (after a night of drunkenness) in a co-ed's (Meg Ryan) dorm. Soon, he's not feeling very well, and he learns that, to his horror, he has been poisoned. Now, he may have less than 24 hours left in his life: precious little time in which to find out who in God's name might have wanted him dead, and why.

"D.O.A." '88 is a loud, stylized, energetic, and very 80s update of the much-loved 1950 film noir classic. The 1950 film is still superior, but this IS entertaining in a trashy, ridiculous way. It comes complete with the kind of twists, turns, and red herrings that one would expect from such a mystery. The rock score (including an on-screen appearance by Timbuk 3) lends some scenes a definite jarring quality. Clearly, directors Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, a married couple at the time and the creators of the Max Headroom character, just set out to make a little potboiler of a film, one that may entertain some people but which can also be easily forgotten. Their most interesting touch is to bookend their version of "D.O.A." with black & white scenes.

The cast is certainly of some value. Quaid is good in the lead, and Ryan (his real-life wife at the time) is very cute as the innocent student who reluctantly helps in his search for the truth. Daniel Stern is amiable as Cornell's friend Hal, a colleague in the literacy department. The assemblage of familiar faces includes Christopher Neame as a thuggish chauffeur, Charlotte Rampling as a local ice queen with a tie to the late Nick Lang, Robin Johnson as her daughter, Jay Patterson as a resentful peer at the college, Brion James and Jack Kehoe as investigating detectives, and, in one of his earliest film roles, a young John Hawkes. That's Bill Johnson, a.k.a. Leatherface in the second "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" movie, as the desk sergeant in the opening few minutes.

Scripted by Charles Edward Pogue, who had previously written "Psycho III" and David Cronenberg's remake of "The Fly", this does have some sharp lines of dialogue along the way. While it may be sordid and *very* flashy, it's fortunately not boring. While the 1950 noir picture may be the better version of the tale overall, this does show its audience a reasonably good time.

Seven out of 10.

I watched this about two weeks ago, and being a fan of the original, I always like to watch the remake and talk smack about the terrible changes they made. With that being said....This wasn't terrible. I really liked that even though the premise was the same (man gets poisoned, man goes to police to tell the story, movie unfolds in a flashback), I did not feel like I was watching the original movie after about the first 10 minutes of the film. Now the original is a noir classic, This movie though I would not say is a classic in the NEO NOIR category, it definitely is worth a watch.

Quaid gives a slightly manacle performance that is fun to watch, and he does a pretty good job of holding the movie together. Some of the other cast members, well they work but their motives to me do not lead up to the results that are laid out, but this is a movie, so who cares? The production is spot on. The lighting is what I always imagine a noir picture to be. Fan shadows, lights through blinds, lit cig smoke. All the stereotypes that make a Noir a Noir are here. It does work and looks spectacular. This movie would be a great movie if you were to be studying lighting techniques.

The end, I did see coming but it felt underwhelming. Noir is known for having some twist, or cool plot device that is set up without even knowing was set up, and then BOOM last ten seconds changes everything....not so much here.

Is it as solid as the original? Well the original is a classic, but to me is a different movie, and other than the set up and the title, are different and should be judged on their own.

I enjoyed it and will watch it again.

Rudolph Maté's film from 1950 is given a revamp for the 80's, Dexter Cornell(Dennis Quaid) is a university lecturer who used to have a successful writing career, but thats now gone down the tubes along with his marriage. The initial exposition plants the notion in the viewers mind that everybody has something against him, so when the revelation comes that he has been poisoned, we are not that surprised, unless of course you are familiar with the original. Dexter after being told he has less than 48hrs to live, decides to trace back his steps with the help of one of his students Sydney Fuller(Meg Ryan), but they find they have many obstacles in their way.

The film begins promisingly in black and white, as Dexter staggers in the rain towards the local police station where he wishes to report a murder...his own, but the Huey lewis style 80's beat that accompanies this scene only serves to remove any sense of tension and tells the viewer that this is going to be pretty bad, its only a question of how bad? Sure enough we are soon using the old flashback medium, but now the film resorts to full Technicolor. There are some brief homages to Noir, as the embracing couple stand in front of a venetian blind, but there's really nothing here to recommend it, the performances are awful, Ryan in particular doing her usual dizzy blonde with a cutesy pie smile routine. The film is a lazy attempt to put some unneeded ooomph into an already fine movie premise, obviously trying to cash in one the Body Heat audience, the seeming results are undoubtedly aimed at a teen audience and to be sure, they are welcome to it. 4/10

It opens with a young man, Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid) who had just been poisoned coming into a police station for the purpose of telling his story. And it is during then is when the story starts of him who is an English professor instructing a class. We find out that he used to be a successful novelist and that as a result of that downfall of not writing again may have led to the breakup up of his marriage. At the same token he also had a student named Nick (Robert Knepper )who consists of the same aspirations as him. And anyways, Nick wanted him to read his unpublished book for the purpose of getting his appraisal. And one day while Dexter was in his office, Nick's body bounced off on the side of his window. And by the time he stuck his head out the window and saw that it was one of his students, his death lead to more revelations regarding his life which may have or may not have led to his poisoning.

I liked this film when I first saw it and I still liked it upon watching it again despite some unanswered questions, the good guy at the end still succeeded. Although the idea of the protagonist being poisoned and has 24 hours to live has been reused, the story in itself is totally different. Just because the idea originally came from the 1947 version of DOA had been made before, it should not have to be ended with it.

When I found out the two credited directors were responsible for MAX HEADROOM I was expecting some MTV over directed nightmare but the artistic style was nowhere as bad as I was expecting . Okay it is a somewhat 1980s type film with an intrusive pop soundtrack in places but a great many ( Too many ) films from that period suffered the same way , it`s by know means as bad or as shallow as something like THE FAST AND FURIOUS from years later

The problem I had was with the script that lacks narritive drive for the first twenty minutes . It picks up in the middle but what really destroys the film is when the murderer is revealed at the end and he explains his motivations . " What ? " I cried almost falling out off my seat " You done that because .... " . Ridiculous doesn`t even begin to do it justice

Stick to the original film noir classic

"D.O.A" is an involving and entertaining little picture from start to finish. Dennis Quaid is at his caustic best; and Quaid is sadly one of the most underused talents in Hollywood. His then beau Meg Ryan also appears with him, but as is usually the case, doesn't really make much of an impact.

The film is stylishly directed throughout, drawing on a number of influences to capture its 'seamy' feel. Would you credit that it's actually directed by two people? The answer is no. The whole thing is superbly slick, from its innovative camerawork to its unabashed use of black and white photography. All these elements help to keep proceedings fresh.

Really the greatest thrill here is to be had with the dialogue, it's snappy yet intricate, doesn't waste a word and yet still manages to be entertaining. The screenplay for this is like a pocket work of art.

This went unnoticed by me for ages before I finally caught it late at night. If this is the first you've heard about it, don't leave it like I did! Catch it soon, it really is top-notch... !

If you're in the mood for a solid genre flick that manages to surprise at every turn, this really fits the bill.

I think when Quaid and Ryan were married and their chemistry on screen is terrific in a terrific story remade from an even better earlier film from the 40's, I understand. This DOA is just different enough to make it interesting to watch. Yes in places this updated version of DOA drags almost to the point where I got bored. There are more than a music club scenes in DOA that seem to be thrown in just to get lots of use the club set. The music is loud but nothing special. This revamped DOA is more of a who done it and valid suspects are plentiful. The characters are well acted an interesting. The original DOA did a far better job of telling you time was of the essence. This DOA uses a contemporary theme of a cheating wife, questionable associates and scheming students to create a web of suspects the main character must weed through.

The film moves a mile-a-minute, with people getting knocked over the head with things, people chasing through tar pits, and of course a short episode at the compulsory carnival. Seems like suspense movies from the 1980's until the mid-1990's always have a scene where the protagonist is stumbling through a carnival or bizarre of some sort late in the evening to add to his already dazed-and-confused condition. Some of the action is a bit unbelievable but what saves it are the fine performances of all the leads, particularly Quaid who keeps you wanting to find out with him what is really going on. Certainly not the best movie of its type, but it has a look and feel all its own.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

This was the first version of DOA I saw. Mainly because cable beat it to death when I was a kid. I have since seen the original which was a straight up film noir mystery. About covering up the sale of stolen uranium. That is definitely a product of its time with atomic warfare on people's minds once the USSR stole how to make such a bomb. The story was going to need to be updated which it is but how ridiculous can it get?

Basically the plot is about a college student who all these women are in love with and his college assignment which is a 400 page novel every9ne except his professor read. The story instead of becoming more suspensful as the mystery unravels grows dull and very very boring and there is not much mystery either. In the original, the story becomes very involved following one plotline before it diverts at tue very end. This version wanders and focuses on someone else's death before reaching the big reveal in the end. Looking back, i think I watched this because Quaid played his character like he was offbeat funny. A drunken writer who lost his touch and never bothered to try and recover it. A common story of all creative people once they reach middle age and begin to doubt themselves after making some clunkers as life becomes more complicated with age. I like that the main character was someone more interesting than a notary with a love interest but the reason for his murder is no less trivial.

It is well acted and I imagine all the actors involved got a kick out of doing a film noir which got to be very common in the 80s. Several remakes like this and a few originals like Fatal Attraction and Grifters were popping up quite a bit. This era even produced the Chinatown sequel.

I suppose I just don't buy the plot or some college student generating so much interest without doing very much to prove it at that stage of his academic career. Why did who read the book bother reading it in the first place? That was too random and outlandlish to be believed. Why did this writer manage to have so many conveniently vital affairs to further the narrative? It tries to have a sort of Chinatown type plot twist in the middle. Maybe if the student's character were better developed it might be more interesting. Instead, the big surprise in the end doesn't make too much sense to me because it isn't believable.

D.O.A has a good premise, borrowed from a 1950 film of the same name and a 1969 film entitled Color Me Dead. But beyond the premise it fails to develop into anything worthwhile. The script mistakes ludicrousness for cleverness; the directors peculiarly seem to think they're making a pop video rather than a film; and Dennis Quaid puts on a weird grin and raises his eyebrows maniacally as if he's auditioning as a Jack Nicholson impersonator. It's good for a laugh but, since that wasn't the original intention, it's hard to rate this as a worthwhile film.

English lecturer Dexter Cornell (Quaid) is a bitter, bored shell of a man. Formerly a great author, he never recovered from the critical failure of his fourth and final novel and vowed never to write again. Without the drive of writing to fill his life, he gave up on everything else too, including his marriage and his dedication to the job. When pupil Nick Lang (Rob Knepper) apparently commits suicide after handing in an assignment, Cornell hits the booze to get over the shock. But soon thereafter, he learns that he has drunk a slow-acting poison, and that within 48 hours he will be dead. So close to death, he finally finds a renewed purpose in being alive.... as, aided by student Sydney Fuller (Meg Ryan), he desperately attempts to solve his own "murder".

It's such a good idea that one can hardly imagine how it could fail. But it does. It really, really does fail in a big way. All the pointlessly fancy camera angles, all the inappropriate musical scoring, and especially the jaw-droppingly stupid solution to the mystery, conspire to ruin the film. D.O.A stands for "Dead On Arrival", and that's the perfect adjectival phrase for the entire film. Some day, this wonderful idea for a film might be used once again to better effect, but for now you'd be best advised to stick with the 1950 version.

This is a movie that tries hard but it doesn't quite takes the cake. The movie tries to put in many different successful thriller elements but the movie is nothing more than a mixture of styles that weakens the movie as a whole- and with a flawed and simple story in it.

The movie is quite short and this is definitely notable in its script. The concept is quite great and it showed some good potential but the story is at all times kept rather simple and short and the movie its story mainly falls from one coincidence into the other, which really doesn't make this the most credible movie to watch. It's just too much of a series of unlikely events, even for thriller standards. Things just don't add up and the weak climax, that is more ridicules and lame than clever or credible, also doesn't help much. The movie its story gets poorly developed, which also makes the movie lack in some good tension or mystery.

Yet the movie is a fairly well known movie in its genre, which seems odd, since it's definitely no text book example of a good thriller, even though all of the formulaic ingredients are present. It probably has to do with the fact that the movie has a good and well known cast. Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan are the main leads of the movie and like always they are great together. They also used to be a real-life couple for years, till Russell Crowe broke up their marriage in 2000. However problem in the movie is that they're just an unlikely couple to team up. It just seems odd to me that a college professor would team up with one of his students, in the final hours of his life, to solve his own murder. But this is probably also the direct result of its poor story development that falls flat in the end and in which nothing quite adds up. On a positive note, Daniel Stern was good in a serious role.

The movie tries to be noir, or at least an homage to film-noir, by using black & white images and certain camera-positioning (strangly only at the beginning and ending of the movie and not the movie entirely.) but also with its 'mysterious' story and characters. After all, the movie is also a remake of a real classic film-noir from 1950, by the same title. The end result however doesn't deserve to touch the genre with a 10 feet pole. It becomes nowhere close of being in the same league. This is due to the poorly developed and just weak story but also because it tries to bring in several '80's movie-making elements, which just doesn't work out. Oh and mixing film-noir style with '80's musical is always a bad idea! It should be a rule; if you pay homage to film-noir, don't ever put 'modern' music under it. Further more also the typical '80's action editing works really lame and makes the action sequences look even cheaper and clumsier than they in fact really were. Also the black & white images don't look right because they don't seem to use proper lighting for it.

One of this typical thrillers that is only watchable once.

6/10

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I don't know which pushes the limits of cerebral capacity more: figuring out your Alternative Minimum Tax or the plot of this movie. The opening shot in black and white is certainly an eye-opener. (The opener apparently references the film noir classic of the same title, D.O.A., 1949-1950, but the 1988 offering is not a remake) Prof Dexter Cornell, played by Dennis Quaid, stumbles into a police station to report a murder. The first question of course is who was murdered to which Quaid responds with his memorable but simple answer, "I was." Quaid plays an English professor-novelist who says, at some point, that English professors don't inspire the kind of passion to be victims of premeditated murders, which is I guess the point of D.O.A.: not even English professors are completely without risk. But don't let this movie fool you. Being an English professor is sort of like flying, it's one of the safest ways to travel.

The rest of the movie is a flashback entirely from Cornell's point of view in which the events leading up to his entry into the police precinct are retraced, which turns out to be two days. The movie shifts back into color, and we are taken back to the morning of two days ago in Cornell's writing class. The first hint of a plot is an unpublished novel written by one of Cornell's students, Nick Lang. Cornell had promised to read the work but delayed. After class, when Cornell is dashing off, presumably to another class or a meeting, Lang runs after him through the halls begging him to read his work. At one point, the student says he will kill himself if the prof dislikes his novel. A couple of scenes later, guess what? Lang is turned into mush, presumably having killed himself by throwing himself from an undergrad dorm window. Cornell's office just happens to be underneath, and the body hits the window before becoming a human pancake. (I have never heard of student dorms being above professor's offices on a college campus, but that is one of the many strange coincidences that permeate this film.) The incident does not stop Cornell and one of his colleagues from celebrating in his office shortly thereafter.

But this is just the beginning. A whole back-story about Lang emerges about him having been put through college on the tab of an older wealthy lady who shot a prowler-thief in her house 20 years previous to the events of the movie. As an interesting twist, it turns out Lang is the son of the slain thief. On top of that, Cornell's marriage is ending. He gives his soon-to-be ex-wife a toy Ferris Wheel and she gives him the divorce papers, a rather odd exchange of Christmas presents. They attend a university social function where he makes a drunken fool of himself. But to add to the twists, the event is sponsored by guess who? The lady financing the late student-writer.

It is never fully explained exactly what Cornell writes. We gather he had 4 or 5 successful books, probably novels, but has had nothing for the last four years. But what he is good at is the bottle. He goes to a bar and encounters a young woman who turns out to be the daughter of the lady of the student who killed himself. It's starting to sound like the nursery rhyme "The Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly." The girl is dragged out from the bar by one of the lady's henchmen leaving Cornell to his own devices. But he is not alone. He ends up drinking himself into a frenzy with one of his students, played by Meg Ryan.

Next morning, he wakes up in Ryan's freshmen women's dorm room. One of thing about this movie: Quaid keeps waking up in places after having conked out. Luckily, he did nothing that would be reported in the gossip column of the university newspaper and jeopardize his tenure. But he feels worse than having a hang-over. He drags himself to the university hospital only to find that he has been poisoned. The lethal chemistry has been absorbed by the body enough that he only has 24 to 48 hours to live. And now he has to find out not only the who but the why. Sort of like a Clue game for geniuses, DOA has many pieces of the puzzle, and Cornell has to figure out their arrangement before he falls over for the last time, and not just from the numerous shaken-not-stirred martinis. Martinis and poison go well together to accelerate the demise of the poor victim. When the pieces start falling into place, they are like nothing you would expect.

The film moves a mile-a-minute, with people getting knocked over the head with things, people chasing through tar pits, and of course a short episode at the compulsory carnival. Seems like suspense movies from the 1980's until the mid-1990's always have a scene where the protagonist is stumbling through a carnival or bizarre of some sort late in the evening to add to his already dazed-and-confused condition. Some of the action is a bit unbelievable but what saves it are the fine performances of all the leads, particularly Quaid who keeps you wanting to find out with him what is really going on. Certainly not the best movie of its type, but it has a look and feel all its own. So take a break from trying to figure out your Alternative Minimum Tax depreciations and check this film out.

D.O.A. is directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton and adapted to screenplay by Charles Edward Pogue from a story by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene. It stars Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Daniel Stern, Charlotte Rampling, Jane Kaczmarek and Christopher Neame. Music is by Chaz Jankel and cinematography by Yuri Neyman.

A loose remake of the 1950 film noir of the same name, the story finds Professor Dexter Cornell (Quaid) staggering into a police station proclaiming that he is dying because someone has poisoned him. Told in flashback by Cornell, we see the events that led up to the point he was poisoned, but not who did it, and then track the frantic Professor as he tries to solve the who done it mystery before he keels over and dies.

Not as bad as the poor box office returns suggest it is, D.O.A. is still very much a frustratingly shaky experience. Lifting only the basic idea of the 1950 movie, the makers stamp their own mark on the premise but add too many red herrings to the already fishy stew. Some plot developments are daft, as is the casting of Meg Ryan in the key femme role - seriously she is just too cookie cute and homely for this material – while the motive reveal is a bit much to swallow. Yet there's still a lot to enjoy and sample here for the neo-noir faithful.

Visually the picture is stylish and appreciative to its noir roots. Opening in black and white to set the story in motion, Jankel and Morton then infuse the film with angled shots and frame distortions. Shadows often come into play, with Venetian blinds and roof rafters impacting, while the addition of a spiral staircase late in the day is most pleasing. Quaid is ever watchable in what is a tricky role that calls for him to garner sympathy whilst not being likable! While elsewhere Stern and Rampling provide good characterisations, even if as written the roles are too small given the importance the characters have to the plot shenanigans.

A bit over cooked on the page, and basically a race against time thriller dressed up in neo-noir clothing, D.O.A. is still none the less worthy of a viewing. 6.5/10

College English professor Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid) stumbles out of the rain into a police station claiming that he has been murdered. Once upon a time, he was a promising writer. His friend Hal Petersham (Daniel Stern) is desperate to publish in the tough Publish or Perish environment. Nick Lang (Robert Knepper) is one of his best students. He is divorcing his wife Gail (Jane Kaczmarek). Lang crashes into his office window falling to his death in an apparent suicide. At a bar, he runs into adoring student Sydney Fuller (Meg Ryan). He wakes up the next morning in her dorm room with a hangover. He goes to the clinic where he's told that he's been poisoned with a maximum of 48 hours to live.

The original has perhaps the best noir opening ever. The fact that this movie opens with a black and white redux shows respect for that iconic scene. At least, we do not have a Psycho situation here. It's a completely different story and it's better for it. Even the original's story isn't top notch. This one has intriguing characters. It has bits of neo-noir style. It does suffer in the shadows of the original. It can never exceed it no matter how great it could be and I wouldn't call this great. At most, it's a good homage to the original.

Interesting plot but painfully dull. The script lacks... lacks acting. To me this film compares with "Made for TV" type movies. I was lucky to survive the film without falling asleep in my popcorn. I watched this film with my family. It is fairly safe to watch with your kids. (only 1 semi sex scene)If you wish to see a young Meg Ryan...check out this movie. Very 80-ish. You will like this movie if you like the combination of depressed people at Christmas, booze, super glue and tar. Or maybe you are like me... and have have a higher standard for acting in films. However I did like the way the movie began and ended! Mark.

For all those people who believe the dialog is worth something, and who appreciate a farce that is clever enough for you to take it seriously, this movie will surprise you. It is not a 'whodunit' for people who can't aren't able to follow the verbal exchange of our hero, Professor Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid).

Cornell teaches in Southern California, near the tar pits. He has not published a novel in four years, his wife is divorcing him, he drinks a bit much, and is blessed or cursed with caustic wit, which he freely dispenses to his students. He has recommended a friend for advancement, and one bright young student has submitted a manuscript to him as an independent project. Cornell doesn't even want to read it, so gives it an "A", and pushes it to the side. Leaning back with a drink in his office he stares out the window, when the bright young student falls past his window on the way to meeting the sidewalk in a splat encounter.

Hal comes to talk, and they chat, drinking some more. The Cornell realizes that he HAS to read the manuscript, now. When he goes home, his wife is waiting with divorce papers. He drinks some more. She leaves, and he goes to a faculty affair, only to find her there. He drinks even more. And when his wife learns that the student is dead, she swoons, and he learns that she had been having an affair with the student. This of course prompts him to do some more serious drinking. The next morning he wakes up to find himself in the dorm room of one of his students, a freshman named Syd (Meg Ryan).

He feels worse than a hangover, goes to the doctor and learns that he has been poisoned, it is irreversible, and he has 24-48 hours to live. He doesn't have much time to find out who killed him, and there are sub-plots, motives, relationships and surprises at every turn, although everything makes sense at the end. All his discoveries and exchanges are adorned with sarcasm, dry wit and keen observations. Let's just say that this movie will give new meaning to the adage "publish or perish".

There are no bad performances in this movie. There are recurrent images, and symbolism used at careful intervals. Watch for the cracked glass, and images distorted through glass. Some of the camera shots are revolutionary for 1988, and some of the violent action is carefully and skillfully choreographed. The music is unobtrusive and appropriate, although occasionally it makes it's own statement, in song lyrics. The visuals in this flick are impressive.

If there are any failures, it is that the opening 20 minutes move a little slow, and nearly puts you to sleep. But the pacing picks up quickly, with just the right amount of exposition in between action segments.

There are no explicit sexual encounters, although there is violence and some bad language.

This is a writer's movie, and is best appreciated by those who have a sense of humor about their own success or failure. I do think if you take it seriously, you're already in big trouble.

The stage curtains open ...

Being a fan of the original 1949 film, I had high hopes that this 1988 remake, starring Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, would give us a good modern take on a classic story. And, to a degree, it did do that. Rather than sticking to the original story, it kept the premise with all new characters and a new story - which ultimately works for an enjoyable thriller noir experience.

Our story centers around Dexter Cornell (Quaid), a college professor and published author. Once an ambitious writer, Cornell has settled into an uninspired life causing a major rift with his wife, and contention with his peers. When one of his more promising students dies from apparent suicide, Cornell's world is turned upside down. After a night of drinking and self pity, he wakes up in the dorm room of one of his students, Sydney (Ryan). He is feeling extremely sick, so he goes to the hospital to find he was poisoned and only has 24-48 hours left to live. Cornell decides to solve his own murder as he cascades down a perilous path of discovery before it's too late.

This film moves along at a very good pace, and it makes every single minute count. I really liked Dennis Quaid in this movie. He carries it well with a strong performance in his portrayal of a man at the end of his rope. You really feel his frustration and despair. Meg Ryan, who would later become his real life wife, played the college student, who has a crush on her professor, well. The chemistry was there. The only failing of this film is that it does come across as corny and cheesy in parts. But, you have enough fun watching it, that these are easily forgivable.

I recommend "D.O.A.". It gets a strong 7 stars out of 10 from me. You are given plenty of twists and turns, and the final reveal was satisfying. It has some memorable moments as well, making it a worthy entry into its genre. I feel the original 1949 version is the superior film, despite the fact that it's dated. But, you can't go wrong with this solid remake.