They almost slipped it by me! One of the more ridiculous movies I saw at TIFF last year was Lakewood, a thriller in which Naomi Watts spends the bulk of the film jogging while her child is trapped in a school during an active shooter situation. Well, that unexpected comedy now goes by The Desperate Hour, which is fitting because I see this as a desperate attempt to escape poor reviews out of the festival.
Directed by veteran filmmaker Philip Noyce, The Desperate Hour stars Watts as a mother who literally jogs against time to save her son as her small-town is on lockdown following a school shooting. As you can see from the trailer, she spends her time chatting with the cops and turning amateur sleuth to figure out what’s really going on.
What’s bizarre about it is the whole thing plays out in real-time, creating this weird hamster wheel effect in which Watts runs but never seems to be getting anywhere. Did she jog into The Matrix and nobody told her? Ugh.
This is the second dud from Noyce in a row following Above Suspicion, a crime thriller that debuted in 2019 but didn’t actually open until 2021 for a laundry list of reasons.
The Desperate Hour hits theaters and VOD on February 25th.
