The Desperate Hour focuses almost entirely on a woman running, turning what might have been a high-stakes movie into a one-note story. This ham-fisted attempt at a heart-wrenching social commentary falls flat in other ways as well. A would-be thriller about a mother frantically attempting to find out if her son is alright during a school shooting, The Desperate Hour reaches for content to push this terribly simplistic idea into feature-length form. The result feels borderline offensive, turning real-world terror into a simple plot device. Every out-of-touch decision that The Desperate Hour makes leaves the movie less interesting and harder to watch.
Directed by Phillip Noyce from a screenplay by Chris Sparling, The Desperate Hour stars Oscar-nominee Naomi Watts as Amy Carr, a recently widowed mother of two who wakes up her older son Noah (Colton Gobbo) for school before going on a morning jog. The jog begins like any other until breaking news and phone calls from loved ones inform Amy that her son's school is in the middle of a lockdown. Amy races against time -- on foot -- to make sure her son is safe. Soon, Amy plunges into the situation further than she could have ever predicted.
The Desperate Hour attempts and fails to achieve what Megan Park did in HBO Max's The Fallout. The film tries to cash in on hot topics, but the lack of authenticity prevents it from resonating with viewers. Watts, who is a powerhouse performer, does her best but cannot save the movie from crashing and burning. Shortly after the film begins, a sappy pop song plays during an overhead shot of Amy on her jog. As people in her life call her over and over again during what seems like the world's longest jog, it becomes clear that this movie is going nowhere fast. After chatting with maybe six different people, Amy turns her phone on silent, setting up later drama while showcasing unrealistic expectations for a workout.
All of the drama in this film occurs while Amy is talking to someone on the phone. She is desperately trying to get to a community center, but her journey is not an engaging enough plot point to carry a whole movie. Other characters make choices that are so bizarre that it can become easy to feel confused while watching and ultimately detached from the story. After building a spectacle around very serious and real events, the movie ends by force-feeding audiences with an inauthentic message. The dire real-world stakes make the conclusion feel not just unjustified but potentially disrespectful.
Screenwriter Sparling has written several single-location movies before The Desperate Hour that actually work, including Buried and ATM. In those movies, the characters have a reason to be in the situations that they are in. Amy is panicking, acting like she's stranded and on her own in a location that she ran to herself and could easily leave. Why should the audience feel for Amy when so many other mothers are living through the same situation during the film? The decisions she makes feel extremely self-righteous, almost putting other students' lives in danger while worrying about her sons. However, the movie wants Amy to be applauded as a hero. The intentions of The Desperate Hour may have been genuine, but the movie itself is poorly thought out.
Source: Trendz OH
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