Once again, a good idea is almost destroyed by a film’s execution. And once again it’s comedy and a director who tries to make the film too many things at once that spoils what could have been a good ride.
“40 Seconds” involves Max (Derek Latta) and a watch he got overseas. This watch tells him what is going to happen forty seconds into the
future. When Max meets Katie (Jennifer Dawson) at a party thrown in her honor, his watch lets him know that they’ll be having sex before the night is over. (In that case, the watch is about a half hour off.) It also shows him something that doesn’t bode well for either of them, and he decides to save his skin without telling her why.
If the movie stuck to this simple and interesting premise, it would
have been a fine film. Instead, it works in some really idiotic humor (complete with a score that sounds like it was lifted from a Looney Tunes short) that kills its buzz. (Though there is a revised edition of the film where about two minutes of the humor has been cut, which can only be a good thing.)
Writer/director Ramiro Hernandez gave himself such a short time to
tell this tale. He tries to cram everything but the story in, and that was a huge mistake. Too bad that watch didn’t clue him in on that.
