Short Time

Dir: Gregg Champion

1990

****

Short Time is one of those wonderful cop comedies that acts as a good example of the switch in style between decades. I feels very much like an 80s comedy but there is something a little grown up and 90s about it. It’s a favourite of mine, although it flew under the radar and hardly ever gets mentioned. It deals with a man reconnecting with his own life, thanks to a string of over the top misunderstandings, which is very much an 80s idea but with Short Time, there is a strong element of believability, a strange sort of authenticity that most goofy comedies don’t possess. The brilliant Dabney Coleman plays Seattle Detective Burt Simpson, a neurotic man who feels less and less connected to his family due to financial worries and preparing for a better future while being only a few years away from retirement. After a mix up at the hospital were Simpson goes in for a routine check, he is told that he has only a couple of weeks to live. His blood samples were switched by a dope-smoking bus driver who was worried his sample would reveal his drug habit and lose him his job. Shocked by this information, Simpson looks into his opinions and finds that his life policy isn’t much when dying early of natural causes. However, a further research, he learns that dying in the line of duty pays quite handsomely, so with his wife and son’s future in mind, he takes every dangerous call that comes across the police radio. He answers certain calls based on the statistical probability that the incidents in question will escalate and lead to probable danger. Unfortunately, Simpson’s new look on life, or what he thinks he has left of it, seems to help him react to the situations he finds himself in. The comedy-filled scenarios all reach positive conclusions, and instead of being killed in action, Simpson is awarded an array of bravery medals. He only discovers the truth of his condition when on a particularly dangerous mission involving a heavily armed Xander Berkeley, loose scaffold and the top of a skyscraper. Like I said, the premise couldn’t be more 1980s comedy. However, what makes the film so great is probably what also kept it away from the top at the box office. There was tough competition the week it came out but also Dabney Coleman wasn’t Tom Hanks. He’s better in my opinion and everyone who loves Short Time (and there are fanatics like my out there who do) love it because of Coleman but at the time film’s needed big name stars. It is an amazing lead performance, comical but always somewhat serious. The last scene is incredibly touching too, albeit overlooked. The character was called Burt as a joke because his partner was called Ernie. However, the first Simpsons short film came on before Short Time in cinemas, so now everyone thinks he was named after Bart Simpson, which isn’t the case. I think the tag line: ‘Getting Killed isn’t as easy as it looks’ might have also put people off but I still can’t understand how the film hasn’t been rediscovered all these years later. It’s a forgotten classic, really funny, very exciting and also rather touching.