Movie Type: Romantic Mystery, Post-Noir (Modern Noir)
Themes: Race Against Time, Flight of the Innocent, Amateur Sleuths
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
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
Steven Saxton - Associate Producer, Nancy Foy - Casting, Andrew Kuehn - Co-producer, Ian Sander - Co-producer, Cathleen Summers - Co-producer, Laura Ziskin - Co-producer, Nancy Cone - Costume Designer, Louis D'Esposito - First Assistant Director, Annabel Jankel - Director, Rocky Morton - Director, Raja Gosnell - Editor, Michael R. Miller - Editor, Chaz Jankel - Composer (Music Score), Ronnie Spector - Makeup, Richard Amend - Production Designer, Stefan Czapsky - Cinematographer, DuArt Black and White - Cinematographer, Yuri Neyman - Cinematographer, Michael O'Sullivan - Set Designer, Jack Bennett, Jr. - Special Effects, Thomas Brandau - Sound/Sound Designer, Charles E. Pogue - Screen Story, Russell Rouse - Screen Story, Clarence Greene - Screenwriter, Charles E. Pogue - Screenwriter, Kevin Bartnof - Foley Artist
Someone poisoned Dexter Cornell. 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.
Synopsis
Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid) teaches English at a Texas College and his class-room lectures consist of his trying to stay above his own sarcasm and clear contempt for the youngsters he instructs. Once a promising novelist himself, Dex churned out four books when he was married to his soon-to-be ex-wife Gail (Jane Kaczmarek) a sweet nurturing woman who has pushed Dex away because there is no more real bond between them. During this Christmas season Dex tells his friend and colleague Hal Petersham (Daniel Stern) about his ability to hold on to his tenure even though he has not published a book for a long time although in academia, it is either publish or perish. A very bright student, Nick Lang, (Robert Knepper) has given Dex his novel to read and Dex has put the young annoyingly intelligent student off partly because he is not producing any writing himself. Hal thanks Dex for his help in outlining and structuring a novel that Hal needs to keep his professorship and while the two are having a drink to celebrate, Lang falls off the roof and slams into the window before hitting the pavement below. In the aftermath, Dex decides to actually read the novel he promised Lang he would read as some acknowledgement to the young man's ambition. Gail has served Dex his divorce papers and with all the seasonal angst, Dex takes off for an evening of drinking to forget about his failed marriage, and the shock of a suicidal student. He meets up with Sydney Fuller (Meg Ryan), a pretty admiring student, and the two spend the evening sampling many cocktails. The next day Dex has a stomach ache and believes it may be the result of a night of drinking and a case of the flu, but when he consults his doctor and realizes he has been given poison that will kill him in 24 hours, he is compelled to track down the murderer before he dies.
