12 Hours to Live

Let me first say that LMN movies are my guilty pleasure. I enjoy them for the cheese. In fact, the cheesier, the better. They don't have to make sense at all. As long as they are over the top and filled with scandalous plot lines, I will forgive cheap productions.

That being said... This film's screenwriter must not have anyone with Diabetes in their life or have known anyone. Type 1 Diabetes can be extraordinarily dangerous but not in the way it is depicted in this film. I have yet to see a realistic portrayal except in my own film I made. This isn't a plug, I'm not leaving my website, I just had to write about the laughable depiction in this otherwise cheesy LMN goodness.

Yes, the script for "12 Hours to Live" is patched together Frankenstein-style from some of the oldest thriller tropes in history, but if you can get past that and some hideously over-directed flashbacks, the main part of this film is quite good. The plotting is coherent and believable, the human drama genuinely touching and the characters are multidimensional. Even the villain evokes pity and pathos instead of just being a stick-figure menace. The acting is also excellent, with Ione Skye as the heroine (an FBI agent with a personal as well as a professional interest in catching the bad guy) and Kevin Durand as the villain (a psychopathic criminal specializing in bank robberies and not sure himself, as he tells us in the film, why he does what he does) standing out. This one is well worth watching and several cuts above the Lifetime TV-movie norm for this genre.

In Belgarde County, in Illinois, the wanted criminal John Carl Lowman (Kevin Durand) runs out gas in an isolated area; he carjacks a car with a couple and kidnaps the diabetic teenager Amy Kennedy (Brittney Wilson). The FBI Agent Megan Saunders (Ione Skye), whose partner and lover was killed by Lowman a couple of years ago in a bank heist, assumes the investigation and finds that Amy needs insulin injection in less than 12 hours, otherwise she will die. However, when her superior arrives in the location, he dismisses Megan since she is haunted by her fail in the past. But she seeks out her absent father to ask for some advice to help her to find Amy while the time is ticking.

"12 Hours to Live" has a promising beginning with an intriguing situation. However, the unrealistic and commercial resolution of the plot is weak and full of clichés. The flawed and annoying screenplay has a repetitive flashback with the shooting where Megan's partner is killed. Further, I do not know why this movie is dubbed in English, and the emotionless voices are too artificial and not synchronized with the movements of the lips. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "12 Horas Para Viver" ("12 Hours to Live")

Lifetime originals are never exactly ground breaking stuff. They are made for television movies that follow simple unoriginal formulas and pack them full of feminist nonsense.

Let me clarify what I mean by that. In Lifetime movies every woman is strong empowered yet a victim while everyman is a wife beater, criminal, rapist, misogynist etc. They really are quite misandric.

This one has it's moments of that but is lighter than usual. It tells the story of an FBI agent on the hunt for a bank robber who killed her fellow FBI agent boyfriend. The criminal has now taken a teenage girl hostage who suffers from diabetes and it's a race against the clock.

You'll have worked out the entire film within the first 10 minutes, it lacks originality but being a Lifetime movie you do already expect that.

It's harmless enough take your brain out entertainment if you know what you're walking into.

The Good:

Passably made

The Bad:

Generic stuff

They still manage to get plenty of their brand of unnecessary feminist content in there

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I learnt nothing, how could I learn from something so generic it's like I'd literally seen it before

There is a running joke in my house that Lifetime is not on in my presence. Please do not let anyone know that I tuned in to see Ione Skye. I had no choice and could not pass up an opportunity to see her.

She did a good job as an FBI agent tracking down the slime-ball (Kevin Durand) who killed her partner (Michael Boisvert).

Durand (Smoking Aces, Wild Hogs) snatches a diabetic girl (Brittney Wilson) as a hostage and, in the Lifetime way, starts to care for her. Of course, Skye is more concerned with the girl than the murderer. You expect all this from a Lifetime movie, but you have to get by it to enjoy the story.

Unfortunately, there isn't much else, so, it has to be rated for Ione Skye fans only.