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Tempo di uccidere (1989)
Rate:
4
Viewed:
4/24
4/24:
Tempo di uccidere (Italian for Time to Kill) is so obscure that it's impossible to find much of info about it.
The only reason why the film gets any look is it stars Nicolas Cage. Anything with him in a leading role from the 80's is
bound to be either good or quirky. It seemed that way for a while for Tempo di uccidere, but things turned out to be bizarre
which torpedoed the film for good.
Well, that's that: Nicolas Cage plays an unlikeable character who gets no sympathy from me. He actually said something to
a magazine years later which may be the understatement of his entire career: "I find it weird that people say I'm weird."
At first, his military character develops a toothache that needs to be taken care of pronto. To do so, he walks off the base in
Africa for a dentist and gets into a truck accident because the driver is too chatty to pay attention to the road. Once again, he
leaves the scene of accident to continue his search for a dentist.
After reaching the construction site, he's pointed out the way by a worker where he wants to be at. During his hike, he literally
puts his smoking cigarette on a chameleon (this part got cut out for broadcast in the UK) and rapes a naked black female for the
hell of it after spotting her bathing alone at some pond. That's when I thought the appropriate title should've been
È ora di stuprare (Time to Rape).
While staying with her at a cave, he, after seeing some small wild animal, shoots his gun against a bunch of rocks, and
one of the bullets ricochets back to the black female which, in turn, hits her in the belly. To end her misery, he
decides to shoot her in the head and then buries her body in a crevice, hoping that nobody will find it.
After meeting up with his co-soldier and a superior for a round of drinks, he begins getting the idea of contracting
leprosy from the dead black female. Hence, he's ceaselessly worried about it despite meeting a doctor while running away again,
and all he wanted to do is to go home in Italy after reaching the end of his time in the military.
Somehow, he lands in the village where the dead black female used to live, and his infected hand is miraculously cured by her
father despite telling him that he killed his daughter and showed him where the body was. At the end, what he had turns out
not to be leprosy but a simple hand infection, and he's happy to be on the ship en route back to Italy. The end.
It's obvious Nicolas Cage's selfish rapist character didn't care about what happened to the black female; he was only
concerned about hiding his "leprosy" condition before being allowed to leave Africa. All he had to do was ask for hydrogen
peroxide and perhaps penicillin.
Anyway, Nicolas Cage's acting is fine for the most part during the first half, but in the next half, he turns into a caricature
like he's always been the last couple of decades. Throughout, I wondered why he agreed to do this weird
Italian picture that's shot on location in Zimbabwe given his enormous talent.
All in all, Tempo di uccidere is certainly out of left field, but it's worth watching, regardless, for Nicolas Cage's sake.