Timebomb (1991) Revisited – Sci-Fi Thriller Review
It’s fair to say that I have the most eclectic taste here on the channel. A lot of the stuff I want to throw out there and talk about I know that I will be alone on having the enthusiasm and excitement to share. It’s also part of the reason when there is a request from someone or an idea that’s a little out there, I am the one who volunteers to talk about it. Sometimes this works out great like when I decided to shine some light on Orca or when we had a request to cover the great Richard Stanley South African supernatural slasher Dust Devil. It’s not always that way but what’s consistent is my joy in talking about something I know and like on the channel and maybe share it with you all. What is exceedingly rare, because I have no life and watch any movie I come across, is to be suggested a movie for a video that I haven’t seen yet. Timebomb from 1991 is one of those movies and it very interestingly walks the line between thriller and sci-fi with a scene firmly in the horror realm thrown in. After viewing it it is assuredly the Black Sheep of one Michael Biehn’s career. Let’s talk about it.
Like I said, I love movies and sharing them with everyone. It’s why one of my favorite shows to do on JoBlo Horror Originals was Best Horror Movie You Never Saw. Most of the time it was maybe a lesser known movie but come on, a ton of y’all had seen it or heard of it. While that series ran its course, sometimes when I talk about a black sheep of an actor or director I get to talk about an overlap of that idea. Timebomb? Not only had I never seen it, but I had never even heard of it before the request came down the pipe. Looking at the creative team behind it, MGM Studios and the famous Raffaella De Laurentiis originally wanted to throw a decent amount of money at a project they found intriguing but also wanted to hire some, at the time, grade A star power with Jean-Claude Van Damme or Chuck Norris taking on the lead role of Eddie Kay. After you watch the movie, you could maybe see a quieter version of Van Damme taking on the role, but Chuck Norris would have made this movie more like a Cannon Films spectacular along the lines of Invasion USA or Death Wish II. The director felt Aliens and Terminator star Michael Biehn was the right choice and he really made the movie.
That writer and director is Avi Nesher who is an Israeli born filmmaker who has had some success both internationally and in the states with movies that range from fun to serious message movies. He was recruited to come to Hollywood by Dino De Laurentiis in the mid 80s and this ended up being his first Hollywood movie. He would also go on to make a couple other fun genre movies including Doppelganger with Drew Barrymore and the third Tales from the Crypt movie Ritual which, yeah, isn’t great but its got Tim Curry and is certainly worth a watch. He would also go on to win the Israeli Academy Award amongst many other awards including lifetime achievement ones. Unfortunately, Timebomb would only get a limited release theatrically and kind of fall off even if Shout Factory would release a special Blu-ray about a decade ago that is now a bit pricey. It’s a shame this one goes so far under the radar because it’s a lot of fun and gives Biehn one of his best starring roles to go along with a really fun and varied supporting cast.
Timebomb opens with a strange sort of exercise with a room full of mannequins scattered with some real humans who take turns shooting a specific one on stage and are timed for it. While we don’t know at the time, this is for a planned assassination attempt by a rogue agency that handles less than clean jobs. Richard Jordan is in charge of the operation and is actually testing his team to see which one has the best shot and reaction time. The team is full of more fun character actors like Jordan as well. Jordan, who is great here as not only a creeper as seen with his rather explicit 900 number call but also just a bad guy in general, had a great career that spanned 3 decades but was cut short by a brain tumor. Logan’s Run and Dune are maybe his most famous appearances, but I think he’s great in lesser talked about gems like Rooster Cogburn, Yakuza, or the brilliant Friends of Eddie Coyle.
The rest of the assassin team includes the likes of Billy Blanks, yeah that Billy Blanks, Tracy Scoggins, and Steven J Oliver. Oliver, who I confused with Steve Railsback like I used to confuse Fred Ward and Stephen Macht, is a reliable That Guy actor with numerous movie and TV roles and Tracy Scoggins is great in Watchers II and the amazing Babylon 5. Billy Blanks is obviously Billy Blanks from the Billy Blanks workout tapes, but his career also included great stuff like Lionheart, The Last Boy Scout, and the amazingly bad Back in Action with the late great Roddy Piper. The team also has similar names as the Reservoir Dogs crew with colors as their handles. I can’t imagine that it was stolen from here as most of that movie may have been taken from something else already. We then get our innocent watchmaker repairman with Michael Biehn who immediately meets his love interest in Patsy Kensit’s Dr. Nolmar. Biehn needs no introduction for this crowd but I’m going to keep it consistent and recommend 1981’s The Fan because that’s a really neat flick that isn’t discussed enough. Patsy Kinset has great taste in men as just two years prior was the love interest for one Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon 2, but she has had a heck of a career that is still going strong today.
Biehn’s Eddie Kay agrees to fix her fathers watch but is then immediately thrust into saving people from a burning building. This sets up not only the character’s instincts but also gives us the start of the killer score by Patrick Leonard who also did Heart Condition and At Close Range. It really works here as it weaves through action, suspense, and even mystery through the whole thing. The rescue is seen on TV by Richard Jordan’s Col. Taylor who knows that the man is a liability. Coincidentally, the action of the fire rescue sends Eddie into a state of constant daydreams and visions of him killing people. These sequences are all done really well and are packed with cold, strange imagery as well as a constantly naked woman calling after him. He is almost killed by one of the assassins and then decides to go see the girl whose watch he is fixing because she is a therapist. After another attempt on his life, he is picked up by Dr. Nolmar and we are off.
The rest of the movie follows Eddie recovering the memories of his older life including remembering languages he shouldn’t know, fighting and gun techniques he never used before, and areas of a hospital he claims he’s never been to. Biehn went all out for this too. He trained 10 hours a day with a mix of Navy SEAL hell week and what the Israeli Defense Forces went through. Waking up at 5am every day to train on a gun and even learning from a specialist on what anxiety looks like ranging from mild to intense. Interestingly he also learned from his producer that his likeness was being used on Alien 3 without his knowledge or pay which was rectified by his lawyer. I love Alien 3, but I would have also loved to have seen the alternate version where Hicks and Newt are alive….anyway….Biehn loved the role and movie and even took a pay cut to get him in and the movie going.
Nolmar and Eddie escape multiple attempts until Eddie ends up kidnapping her because he thinks she may be one of the people helping hunt him down. It takes a refreshing approach of not having the two leads instantly fall for each other. There is almost no trust between the two for some time and then when they finally do have romance it’s a combination of relief that they are both good guys but also a stress release. Biehn actually pitched this with Kinset, and the love scene is very raw and emotional. Our final character actor is introduced when Richard Jordan recruits Mr. Phillips to help his team who keeps failing. Phillips is played by Robert Culp who became famous for I Spy but I will always know for his voice as Dr. Breen from Half Life 2. He also showed up in fun stuff like Xtro 3 and Silent Night, Deadly Night 3 with a special shout out for one of the best made for TV horror movies ever in 1973’s A Cold Night’s Death.
Great setpiece shootout after great setpiece shootout, my favorite being the movie theater one, lead our heroes to a mental institution where we get the real horror part of this gem. It’s pretty horrifying to learn that your childhood memories are implants and that you don’t know who you are anymore but at the bottom of an asylum they find Eddie’s birthing chamber. The place where maybe he wasn’t born but rather made. He was fed memories in a horrible machine while also programmed both mentally and physically. There are so many things hooked up to him but also inside him and it looks uncomfortable and quite terrible. It cuts into him and changes him from the inside out. Out of context you could confuse this with a sci-fi horror film on just this part alone. Once he knows it all, he vows to stop the plan and get his life back or start a new and better one. The final scene is tense enough to where you aren’t sure they are going to stop the assassination let alone live to tell the tale.
Timebomb was quickly forgotten and rarely released again on physical media but it’s not terribly difficult to find, you probably just have to be specifically looking for it. Tubi, MGM+, Amazon, and YouTube Premium are all available options but it’s not like it’s going to be heavily advertised. Its impact is minimal overall but if you are like me and always on the lookout for new to you movie experiences, Timebomb checks all the action, sci-fi, and even a little horror boxes. It’s the Black Sheep of Biehn’s career and deserves much more attention. Get this one implanted in your memories soon.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Black Sheep can be seen at the bottom of this article. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
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