‘The Desperate Hour’ Film Review: Naomi Watts Races Against Time and Tedium in Dull Thriller
thewrap.comThis review of “The Desperate Hour” (formerly known as “Lakewood”) was first published on Sept. 12, 2021 after the film’s premiere at the Toronto Film Festival.
A mom’s morning jog becomes a gimmick running in place in “The Desperate Hour,” a crisis scenario striving for issue-driven importance that should have paid more attention to its dull suspense mechanics, slapdash style, and implausibility.The estimable Naomi Watts is always in fighting shape for the deep feelings of a peril picture, as her all-in turns in “Funny Games,” “The Impossible” and “The Wolf Hour” attest — hell, throw in “King Kong” too — but as Amy Carr, a widow in the woods (literally, figuratively) and desperate to get to a son in danger, it’s the actress who’s stuck and unable to escape the confines of a cheap trap that only gets more tedious as it goes along.Her captors are filmmakers who should know better with the creativity possible in restraint.
Screenwriter Chris Sparling notably turned a one-person situation into a better-than-usual nail-biter with “Buried,” which kept Ryan Reynolds in a coffin for 90 minutes yet showed storytelling chops and character smarts.
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