2 Minutes Later (DVD Review)
25 May, 2008 By: Holly J. WagnerPrebook 5/27/08; Street 6/24/08
TLA
Thriller
$19.99 DVD
Not rated.
Stars Jessica Graham, Michael Molina, Ben Sander, Peter Stickles, J. Matthew Miller.
First, get past the fact that our victim could probably have escaped if he'd run off the road instead of on it. Then you can pretty much enjoy the detective thriller 2 Minutes Later.
The plotline holds up pretty well as insurance adjuster Michael Dalmar (Molina) goes looking for his estranged twin brother, famous Philadelphia photographer Kyle Dalmar, who specializes in sex and humiliation.
He disappeared before Michael arrives in town. What we know is that Victor (Stickles) killed Kyle because he “saw too much” and apparently had pictures. References to the 1966 thriller Blowup (which Brian de Palma remade as Blowout in 1981 with John Travolta) abound.
Kyle's agent calls in P.I. Abigail Marks (Graham) to find him, and after she mistakes nice guy Michael for Kyle — a notorious jerk — they continue the ruse so they can work together to find him.
They track down models from a digital-camera chip Kyle sent to himself just before his death — two minutes earlier, in fact. With each model they learn more about Kyle, but it's his assistant Joey (Miller) who inadvertently sends them in the right direction.
One of the hallmarks of better G&L films is that the characters don't all have to be gay (here, they are) for the story to work. This passes that test.
A scene about downloading the photo chip plays particularly well, and another poking fun at the pretentious art scene is amusing.
Writer-director Robert Gaston delivers a competent mystery, if one can overlook anomalies such as the fact that Kyle probably could have escaped to start; people running through rain without getting wet; and Michael's mental leap that Joey is in danger when he hears a gunshot that could have come from anywhere.
Otherwise production values are mostly good. Much of the acting is middling, but Graham stands out as sexy, sassy Abigail, and Molina holds up in the dual role of Kyle and Michael, even if he seems in a perpetual state of bewilderment.