Heisserer is able to keep the thrills coming while maintaining an emotional tether to the character and the situation. While occasionally the movie veers into the realm of implausible melodrama, it's a well-modulated affair and knows exactly when to pull itself back from the brink.
This movie will probably be missed by many, which is sad because it's a great film. Paul Walker does a great performance (R.I.P, Paul) and he manages to carry this movie on his shoulders (similar to Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in Gravity, and Robert Redford in All Is Lost, both of which I liked and reviewed). He manages to keep interest from dwindling. Hours is a compelling film.
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It´s a great movie which captures from beginning to end through the constant obstacles Paul Walker has to face in this suspension-packed movie. You can actually feel with him as he tries to save his newborn daughter by keeping the machine working manually. I was literally praying for him to make it. It´s definitely worth a peak!
Though a screenwriter by profession, Heisserer proves to be more economical with style than storytelling. Like a few too many contemporary genre films, Hours suffers from flashbackitis, a chronic condition that leads filmmakers to believe that a tragic backstory will add gravitas.
One only wishes Walker had stronger, better developed material instead of a promising drama that eventually unravels and seems overlong even with a running time of 96 minutes.
Walker has few “big” scenes, no memorable dialogue and plays up the exhaustion, which tamps down the emotions of his performance. So even an action packed finale can’t rescue this dramatically thin exercise in one-man showmanship.
The film's fealty to history is both unnecessary and a hindrance, pulling us out of a story that could have easily been set in an anonymous city hit by a nondescript hurricane.
rip paul walker . this is a epic cool movie but is it based on a true story ? . it is fun and epic and watching paul walker survive with his movie baby but some scenes paul walker can be a idiot .
Hours is a surprising sleeper movie that kept me engaged throughout. The emotional, personal, and simple story that gets more and more desperate as it progresses had me at the edge of my seat. For being such a short run time, every second is used intelligently minus a few flashback scenes that felt slightly mishandled. Characters are instantly engaging, especially the morally upstanding ones early on, which perfectly balances the less desirables introduced post-hurricane. Often, you are left with the external monologue of the protagonist. If I had to level a complaint, it would be in acting. Paul Walker is certainly giving it his all, but I just feel like he wasn’t the right fit. Thankfully, he grows as the movie progresses. The soundtrack is powerfully emotional at all the proper times. Special effects are used sparingly and generally don’t have many problems. I will say the baby looks like the obvious puppet it is on close-in shots, but this will not break immersion. I cannot recommend this movie enough and I can’t think of anything quite like it.
An innovative take on the disaster genre, “Hours” is a heart-gripping story that follows the endeavors of a father attempting to keep his newly born daughter alive in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Throughout its runtime, every second is noticeable as he succumbs gradually to a demise that is seemingly inescapable. Though desperate in nature, it is within his struggle that the film finds a wonderful balance between futility and hope. The minimalistic approach kept the plot grounded in an environment that at times felt like post-apocalyptic horror; something the film capitalized on to enhance the survival elements once the abandoned hospital setting was properly introduced. Even though the plot wrapped up only forty-eight hours after the hurricane concluded, not a single minute was wasted with unnecessary filler. If anything, the story should have lasted several scenes longer. This would have added some polish to one of the film’s few shortcomings and gone further to provide some extra context surrounding the conclusion.
In terms of characterization, an interesting arch is applied to the father as he must weigh the sudden loss of his wife against his will to keep their daughter alive. This continues to escalate as the situation spirals out of control and he is faced with the grim aftermath of the storm; forcing the scales toward reality as he must ultimately resolve to move forward. The mechanic of the draining battery was particularly clever in this light, as it subtly increased both the tension of the narrative and the measures that needed to be taken to ensure that enough power was maintained with each manual interaction. Some flashbacks were also provided to enhance the chemistry between the main character and his wife, but they felt regrettably unnecessary largely due to the awkward timing of their placement. Concerning the supporting cast, it was a breath of fresh air to witness some characters that felt very human in their depiction of selflessness, namely the unnamed cook and nurse. In contrast, the film also utilized several looters to depict the flip side of reality, serving primarily as hurdles for the main character to confront and overcome. In conclusion, what allowed “Hours” to shine was the unique perspective it applied to a historical event. While the story could have followed a large group of characters struggling to survive the catastrophe as it struck, it chose to lend the focus to an individual as he fought for the survival of someone other than himself. The slow pacing, sparse-yet-powerful music, and concise acting all contribute to a larger than life experience that sets in early and lasts until the final minute is up.
"Fast & Furious" star Paul Walker (R.I.P) stars in this drama/thriller about a man trying to keep his infant daughter alive during the events of hurricane katrina. It takes a while for Walker's performance to acquire the required emotion needed to keep the movie afloat, but he does get it right after a while. My problem with this movie is that I never really cared about Walker's character at all. I cared about his infant daughter's fate, but I found him and his wife character to be really unenjoyable and almost unlikable. This made it hard for me to really get into the movie.
I can definitely see why people would like this movie, as it definitely pull at your heart strings. The problem in is that by using the baby girl in the way it does, it plays off of your emotions in an incredibly basic way. It's almost as if the movie was exploiting me. Overall I was curious to see how the movie ends, but I didn't enjoy the majority of it. To be honest "Hours" felt like it was going on for hours. It's definitely got an emotional core to it, but everything surrounding that core I found to be boring. Because of that I didn't enjoy the movie and can't recommend it. I give it a score of 4.8/10-Bad.
Ya se que varios "fanboys" estarían esperando esta película por la trágica pérdida de Paul Walker. No hay nada para recordar. La película más aburrida que he visto en mucho tiempo (casi me duermo en el cine) y también recordemos que no son más de 100 minutos en el cine. ¿Por que razón es tediosa y aburrida? Por no tener movimiento; la película está atascada en su propia trama como Paul Walker está atrapado en ese hospital, lástima que los creadores de la película no supieron como avanzar y se quedaron presionando en una acción que el pobre actor debe realizar alrededor de la película, y, si se lo están preguntando, eso no es actuar, eso es obedecer. Muy aburrida y vacía.