Crimetime

1996 British film

August 1996 (1996-08) (U.S.)
29 November 1996 (1996-11-29) (UK)

Running time

118 minutesCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglishBudget£4.3 million^[1]
($6 million)^[2]

Crimetime is a 1996 British thriller film starring Stephen Baldwin, Pete Postlethwaite, Sadie Frost and directed by George Sluizer.

Plot

Crimetime is set in the future where the media is nearly omnipotent. When an unemployed actor named Bobby (Stephen Baldwin) is hired to play a serial killer on a crime reenactment television series he desires to understand the killer's motivations and begins researching the crimes getting police officers to describe the grisly details of recent murders. Bobby becomes an expert and a star, which delights the real culprit and inspires him to go on to even more lurid, headline-grabbing crimes.

Reception

Crimetime was released to negative critical reaction mainly noting the confusion of the plot.^[3] Shlomo Schwartzberg of Boxoffice magazine stated "Crime Time makes little sense at its best of times. At its worst, it's unwatchable."^[4] Channel 4 in their review noted that in spite of "a decent cast and the odd stylistic flourish, this psychodrama is dragged down by histrionic plotting, clunky talk and general sense of confusion over what it wants to be."^[5]

References

^ Alexander Walker, Icons in the Fire: The Rise and Fall of Practically Everyone in the British Film Industry 1984-2000, Orion Books, 2005 p269
^ Jones, Alan (February 1997). "Crimetime". Cinefantastique. Fourth Castle Micromedia. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
^ "Crimetime Movie Reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 24 October 2008.
^ "Movie Reviews > Crimetime". Box Office (magazine) Boxoffice. Archived from the original on 5 February 2010. Retrieved 24 October 2008.
^ "Crimetime Moviereview 1996". Channel 4. Retrieved 24 October 2008.