The Last Minute Movie Review

At first blush, Stephen Norrington's (Blade) is the kind of hip nouveau Trainspotting, about a hot young actor who quickly washes out and becomes another sad victim of the UK underworld.

Starring Max Beesley (known almost exclusively for being Mariah Carey's co-star in Glitter) as our ennuied beefcake, Norrington paints a portrait of time running out and life slipping away. Beesley's Billy Byrne jumps from encounters with electronica fetish clubs to jazz-standard-lip-synching hit men, ending up in the arms with one of the least enchanting ingenue I've seen in a long while. Played by Emily Corrie, it's not really her fault -- the lovely lass is stuck under a knit cap that makes her look like a common street urchin.

Playing with expectations and sudden changes of momentum -- via unsexy starlets or impromptu dance numbers -- is part of what Norrington is trying to get at with The Last Minute, but in today's world, do stories about crazy and unexpected goings-on really raise eyebrows any more? Norrington does his best to keep Minute from feeling derivative of a Guy Ritchie or a Danny Boyle film, but ultimately it dies on the vine. Not really because it's all been done before but because the story is so vapid we end up feeling like we've been had.

Still, gotta have respect for any film that gets Udo Kier to take of his shirt.