Bad Timing
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Year Released: 1980
Rating: 1.0
Mundane story of jealousy gets sliced-and-diced by Roeg for Maximum Arty Potential - horrifically miscast Art Garfunkel (playing a psychoanalyst!?) is fascinated with dame-with-a-past Theresa Russell (overacting part of the time), but when Russell ends up in a hospital room of a suspected overdose, intrepid detective Harvey Keitel becomes strangely suspicious. The chop shop approach Roeg took to The Man Who Fell to Earth is just as dubious here, but instead of the fractured timeline - with its jump cuts and flash cuts and editing room hokum - adding complexity to the couple's relationship, it becomes a bigger jigsaw puzzle, drawing attention to its construction instead of its plot. To prevent viewer ennui, Roeg throws in frequent sex scenes which, frankly, aren't very erotic.
