• Rating:
• Genre: Mystery
• Movie Type: Romantic Mystery, Post-Noir (Modern Noir)
• Themes: Race Against Time, Flight of the Innocent, Amateur Sleuths
• Director: Annabel Jankel
• Main Cast: Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, Charlotte Rampling, Daniel Stern, Jane Kaczmarek
• Release Year: 1988
• Country: US
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• MPAA Rating: R

Plot

"They didn't kill me; I was dead already," is the statement uttered by Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid), an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has been poisoned by a slow-acting toxin and who has twenty-four hours to track down his killers before he ceases to exist. Remade from the 1949 Rudolph Mate thriller by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton, the co-directors jazz up the old luridness with slap-up doggishness that boosts the intensity-level higher than it deserves to go. Cornell is a burned-out novelist trying to hold on to tenure at the university while seeing his marriage collapse around him. As if that weren't enough, he is receiving amorous come-ons from smart, young student Sydney Fuller (Meg Ryan) and being badgered by another student, Nick Lang (Robert Knepper), to read his brilliant first novel. Not long after Dex demurs to Nick to read his novel, Nick is killed in a fall. Only then does Dex find out that Nick has been having an affair with his wife. Things keep going from bad to worse when, after an all-night drinking binge, Dex discovers that he has been slipped a poison that will kill him within 24 hours. Teaming up with the adoring Sydney, Dex tries to track down the person who poisoned him while dodging the cops, since he happens to be a prime murder suspect. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Dennis Quaid - Dexter Cornell
• Meg Ryan - Syndey Fuller
• Charlotte Rampling - Mrs. Fitzwaring
• Daniel Stern - Hal Petersham
• Jane Kaczmarek - Gail Cornell

Christopher Neame - Bernard; Robin Johnson - Cookie Fitzwaring; Robert Knepper - Nicholas Lang; Jay Patterson - Graham Corey; Brion James - Detective Ulmer; Jack Kehoe - Detective Brockton; Elizabeth Arlen - Elaine Wells; Karen Radcliffe - Jane Corey; William Forward - Chief Resident; Lee Gideon - Mr. Fitzwaring; Bill Bolender - Nick Lang Sr.; Hillary Hoffman - Corey's Daughter; John Hawkes - Sloane; Michael Costello - College President; Gabriel Folse - Frat Jock #1; Marco Perella - Cab Driver; Matt Thompson - Frat Jock #2; Timbuk 3; Brent Anderson - Metcalf

Credit

Richard Amend - Production Designer; Jack Bennett, Jr. - Special Effects; Stefan Czapsky - Cinematographer; DuArt Black and White - Cinematographer; Raja Gosnell - Editor; Clarence Greene - Screenwriter; Annabel Jankel - Director; Chaz Jankel - Composer (Music Score); Andrew Kuehn - Co-producer; Michael R. Miller - Editor; Rocky Morton - Director; Yuri Neyman - Cinematographer; Charles E. Pogue - Screen Story; Charles E. Pogue - Screenwriter; Russell Rouse - Short Story Author; Ian Sander - Co-producer; Ian Sander - Producer; Ronnie Spector - Makeup; Cathleen Summers - Co-producer; Laura Ziskin - Co-producer; Laura Ziskin - Producer; Nancy Foy - Casting; Thomas Brandau - Sound/Sound Designer; Louis D'Esposito - First Assistant Director; Nancy Cone - Costume Designer; Kevin Bartnof - Foley Artist; Michael O'Sullivan - Set Designer; Steven Saxton - Associate Producer

Similar Movies

Color Me Dead; Frantic; The Fugitive; The Big Clock; Unforgettable; Memento; The Short Night of the Glass Dolls; 88 Minutes; Kill the Killer; Quicksand

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