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‘Running Out of Time’ on Netflix: All the Info on the Tasha Smith Thriller

Who needs Netflix originals when the streaming service keeps adding highly addictive content from other networks? That’s definitely the case with the pulse-pounding thriller Running Out of Time , which people are now streaming like whoah. The movie, which was just added to Netflix on August 1, actually premiered on BET back in December 2018. But what is Running Out of Time about? And who is in the cast? And what is the film’s connection to the boy band B2K?! You’ve got questions, and we’ve got answers!

What is Running Out of Time about?

Tasha Smith stars as Brenda, a widowed woman held hostage by a man from her late husband’s past. Even worse, he’s holding her family hostage, too. Worse than that, he’s searching for a secret from her husband’s past, something she’s totally unaware of. Hard to negotiate with a madman when you don’t know what he wants! Turns out that Brenda got a lot more than millions of dollars from her late husband when he passed away. She also inherited a secret file…

Who is in the Running Out of Time cast?

The film stars Tasha Smith as Brenda. Smith was most recently seen as part of the cast of Fox’s Empire (where she played Carol) and as the lead of the TBS/OWN sitcom For Better or Worse . And if you grew up obsessed with NBC’s Must See TV era, then you probably first saw Smith as a regular on the sitcom Boston Common . Fun fact: Tasha Smith has a twin named Sidra Smith!

Sydney Elise Johnson plays Brenda’s daughter Kristen. This is Johnson’s feature film debut, but she has a lot of stage experience, having performed in Much Ado About Nothing and Three Sisters in New York City.

Telma Hopkins plays Brenda’s mother Dolly. Hopkins is basically a legend, having started out as a member of the ’70s hitmakers Tony Orlando and Dawn before starring in a string of hit sitcoms ( Bosom Buddies , Gimme a Break! ) and endearing herself to a generation as Aunt Rachel on Family Matters . Most recently she’s appeared on the Netflix originals Dead to Me and Family Reunion .

RonReaco Lee plays a family friend who knows more about the file than Brenda. He was most recently seen on BET’s The Quad and STARZ’s Survivor’s Remorse . He also had a recurring character on Girlfriends (Chris) and was a regular on Sister, Sister back in the ’90s.

The movie also stars Paul Logan, Kerry Rhodes, Sean Dominic, Kearia Schrodeder, and Brandon Anthony Giles

Who wrote and directed Running Out of Time ?

The film was directed by Chris Stokes, who also directed You Got Served and Til Death Do Us Part . He was also the manager of B2K and Marques Houston back in the day, and he co-wrote Running Out of Time with Houston.

Is there a Running Out of Time trailer?

Oh, you bet there is. Here’s a tease of Running Out of Time .

Stream  Running Out of Time  on Netflix

• Running Out of Time
• Telma Hopkins

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Running Out of Time

Where to watch.

Rent Running Out of Time on Apple TV, or buy it on Apple TV.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Chris Stokes

Sean Dominic

Telma Hopkins

RonReaco Lee

Kearia Schroeder

Pamela Odell

Tasha Smith

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Where to watch

Running out of time.

Directed by Chris Stokes

Newly widowed Brenda Harper and her family are taken hostage over something from her late husband's past.

Tasha Smith RonReaco Lee Telma Hopkins Kearia Schroeder Dustin Harnish Sean Dominic Sydney Elise Johnson Paul Logan

Director Director

Chris Stokes

Writers Writers

Chaz Echols Marques Houston Chris Stokes

Stunts Stunts

Footage Films

Releases by Date

01 dec 2018, releases by country.

• TV Rating: TV-14

87 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

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RUNNING OUT OF TIME

• Post author: eenableadmin
• Post published: August 5, 2019
• Post category: Uncategorized

RUNNING OUT OF TIME (Días contados)

(director/writer: Imanol Uribe; screenwriter: Juan Madrid (novel); cinematographer: Javier Aguirresarobe; editor: Teresa Font; cast: Carmelo Gómez (Antonio), Ruth Gabriel (Charo), Javier Bardem (Lisardo), Karra Elejalde (Rafa), Candela Peña (Vanessa), Elvira Mínguez (Lourdes), Pepón Nieto (Ugarte), Joseba Apaolaza (Carlos), Pedro Casablanc (Alfredo), Chacho Carreras (Portugues), Raquel Sanchís (Rosa); Runtime: 93; Tanelorn Films/Ariane Films; 1994-Spain)

“The problem with this slickly done film, is that everything is only surface deep.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

“Running Out of Time” is loosely based on the opera Carmen; it’s a star-crossed love story between a Basque terrorist and a junkie whore. The terrorist is a member of ETA, whose mission is to carry out a series of car bombs in the Madrid area–including the police station. The film’s protagonist is Antonio (Gómez), a sullen young man who never smoked dope and seems to have no life in him except he has some kind of duty to this mission. He sneaks past the check-point guards to get into Madrid by hooking up with a whore, and goes to his rented apartment where he poses as a free-lance photographer. He meets his next-door apartment dweller Charo (Gabriel) when she’s locked out and she asks him to break into her place, explaining that her husband Alfredo knows how to but he’s serving time in prison.

When Antonio can’t open her door she goes to his place to take a leak and shoots heroin in his bathroom, and takes a bath; when she discovers he’s a photographer, she asks him to take nude photos of her in the bath. There will be lots of titty shots and shots from her waist down. Soon her roommate Vanessa returns with the key; and, Antonio, even though he knows he shouldn’t, gets involved with Charo. He meets her untrustworthy pimp, Lisardo (Bardem), and the local drug pusher, Portugues. The girls get money for whoring, and are living a hopeless existence. Charo, even though she’s a whore, only lets men look at her while dancing in the nude.Vanessa gives them blow jobs. Charo tells Antonio she won’t screw anyone else but her husband Alfredo, because he knows how to make love to her. This will not stop Antonio from trying until he succeeds.

When Inspector Rafa and his police team break into Charo’s place and insult the girls, they also hassle Antonio. But he’s much smoother than the bimbo girls and shows them his phony ID card while smooth talking them. When they leave, he warns Charo to watch out because one of her people is an informer. He says the cops know all about her next cocaine deal and party.

Meanwhile Antonio’s relationship with his other terrorist partner Lourdes (Mínguez ), grows chilly.

The problem with this slickly done film, is that everything is only surface deep. We never read the terrorist’s mind or get to know much about Antonio or why he does what he does. This is strictly an in-your-face film experience, as the director Uribe keeps it at a sensual level and never probes for a possibly deeper story. What this does, is make it a film that was diverting because of the nuanced performances by Gómez and Gabriel. But it doesn’t add anything to knowing the terrorists, or exploring the underground of pimps, drug dealers, whores, and cops who stretch the rules in dealing with these low-lifes. A forgettable film but, nevertheless, an enjoyable one.

REVIEWED ON 7/25/2001 GRADE: B –

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‘running out of time’ 1 & 2 blu-ray review from arrow video.

Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To has had a long and interesting career in the business. I first discovered his work back in 1993 with the release of his action classics The Heroic Trio and its sequel, Executioners , both released the same year. Those films left a major impression on me because even though they were continuing a story, they were both so different from one another.

Those films starred three of my all-time favorite actresses, Anita Mui, Maggie Cheung, and Michelle Yeoh. Throughout the course of those two films, we are taken on a crazy journey, but the characters drive the pictures, and that would be something that To would be known for as his career continued.

Arrow Video has put together a package for two of his later films (1999 and 2001, respectively) Running Out of Time and its sequel. I’d only ever seen the first film in this duo, but I remembered it quite fondly, and I guess the fact that there was a sequel sort of just went under the radar for me. It was an interesting ride to revisit the first, but that second one really doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor.

In Running Out of Time , Cheung Wah (Andy Lau) is a master thief who learns he only has 72 hours to live, and a score to settle. Close on his heels is Inspector Ho Sheung Sang (Lau Ching-wan) and the two men quickly jump into a cat-and-mouse game with high stakes and intense action.

With Running Out of Time 2 , Inspector Ho (once again played by Lau Ching-wan) finds himself in another predicament, with a new thief named The Thief (Ekin Cheng), who has his own vendetta and a game to play with the inspector.

RELATED: ‘MIAMI CONNECTION’ RETRO: AN ENDEARING LEGACY AFTER 35 YEARS

There’s a massive difference between these two films, and both are enjoyable, but in the first one, you can really feel the tension and excitement. It’s more of that “edge of your seat” anticipation throughout, plus, Andy Lau and Lau Ching-wan have undeniable chemistry together, which seems to make everything feel more crucial. There are several surprises and an emotional connection, which the second film lacks.

Part two outdoes itself in an action sense, but there is an overabundance of humor that takes away from any real investment in the characters. The first film is by and large the true winner, but despite the flaws of the second, it still manages to at least be entertaining.

Arrow never skimps on the bonus content, so in addition to the high definition transfers, the English dubs, etc., you get audio commentaries, archival interviews, trailers, and in part two, a really cool look at the mythology of Hong Kong Cinema, with the 52-minute documentary Hong Kong Stories .

The set is now available, and if you’re a fanatic of HK films in general, despite the shortcomings of part two, it’s still a worthy piece to own.

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‘the project a collection’ 4k uhd review: two beautifully preserved action classics, ‘the life of chuck’ review: a faithful stephen king adaptation (tiff 2024).

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Acclaimed director Johnnie To (The Heroic Trio, The Mission) is on top form with slam bang action-thriller Running Out of Time and its equally electrifying sequel.

Expert hostage negotiator Ho Sheung-sang (Lau Ching-wan, Black Mask, Mad Detective) is drawn into a psychological game of cat-and-mouse when a criminal mastermind with weeks to live (Andy Lau, Infernal Affairs, House of Flying Daggers) decides to take on the entire Hong Kong Police Force. There’s more to his plan than meets the eye, but can Inspector Ho figure it out and catch him in time? He’s got 72 hours to try.

A huge box office hit, Running Out of Time swept the 19th Hong Kong Film Awards and spawned a popular sequel in Running Out of Time 2, in which Lau Ching-wan returns as Inspector Ho - this time in pursuit of a sophisticated art thief with a taste for drama and theatrical flair.

Picture 8/10

Arrow Video presents Johnnie To’s Running Out of Time and Running Out of Time 2 (the latter co-directed by Law Wing-cheong) in a new 2-disc set with both presentations sourced from new 2K restorations. Each film is presented via a 1080p/24hz high-definition encode on its own individual dual-layer disc in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The restorations were performed by Fortune Star.

Both presentations end up looking good, it's just neither stand out in any special way. Both films have gone through thorough restorations, no severe blemish or fault to be seen, and detail levels are solid enough if not especially impressive. Some scenes lack the minutiae I would have expected in a newer restoration, and this can lead to a slight fuzziness in places. It appears some minor filtering has been applied to the image leading to grain that doesn’t look as sharp as it could, and even though that could play into that slight fuzziness that is present I suspect a most of it is more inherent to the original elements.

As to any filtering that may have been applied it doesn’t impact the final image in any severe way I'm thankful to say. As I mentioned grain is still present and there’s a film texture to be seen, it’s just not as strong or clean as I would have hoped with the texture varying from shot to shot; one shot will look grainy (if a little noisy) while the next might have a waxier texture. Colours and black levels are mostly solid but on occasion, usually in dimly lit shots, the black levels can flatten and turn a bit of a murky blue crushing detail out. During its stronger moments shadows look rather good with distinguishable details, light even dispersing naturally into the dark background with no banding evident. This aspect may be a little stronger in the second film.

Minor hindrances aside the presentations for both films are pleasing, but that's about all that can really be said.

(This title was produced in collaboration with the UK label Eureka for their Masters of Cinema series, and it appears Eureka is using the exact same discs. When these discs are placed in a region A player Arrow’s branding and menus appear. When placed in a region B player the Masters of Cinema branding and menus appear.)

On top of separate Mandarin and Cantonese 5.1 surround DTS-HD MA soundtracks, each film also comes with an optional English soundtrack, the first film's track presented in lossless 1.0 PCM monaural, the second in 5.1 DTS-HD MA surround. I watched each film in Mandarin and then sampled the other tracks.

Despite recent restorations and presentations consistently proving to me otherwise (again and again and again) I still find myself anticipating the audio for 90’s/early 00’s Hong Kong films to sound flat and lifeless, all based on previous experiences with home video releases from many years (now decades) ago. I was clearly expecting the same here because I ended up being astounded at how good both the Mandarin and Cantonese soundtracks come out sounding, the Mandarin one winning with a slight edge. Spoken dialogue has a nice punch to it managing to sound fairly lifelike, not flat and tinny as I was anticipating, and the action scenes do push the volume levels without distorting. Even the Cantonese track, which I felt features the more obvious dubbing, comes off sounding the same.

The mix for both films isn’t anything I’d call special, both coming off about what I would expect for most action films: dialogue is focused to the fronts while ambient noise and action is mixed to the rears, along with the occasional voice, ringing phone, and whatever else seems appropriate. Music is of course also mixed to the rears. Yet even if I can’t say it offers up any surprises it still all sounds rather good, and movement and panning between speakers sounds natural.

The English tracks end up being a little weaker, the mono track for the first film being the weakest one of all of the audio presentations. To its credit music and action still offers notable range but voices come off a bit monotone in comparison to the other tracks. The 5.1 English surround track for the second film fares better but is still noticeably weaker compared to the other two tracks. Also, the music mix sounds a bit off, maybe cutting things off too early at times. Interestingly, while the second film features a good amount of English dialogue, present in both the Mandarin and Cantonese tracks, it appears that the English dialogue was also dubbed over for this track since the accents differ. I have to assume this is how it’s usually done (actor availability and such) but this is probably the first time I really noticed it.

I give the edge to the Mandarin soundtracks for both films, but no matter which track one goes with (even the mono English track on the first film) they shouldn’t find much of anything to be disappointed by.

Extras 8/10

Arrow (and Eureka, who is handling the region B release) have thrown in a decent amount of material, though most of it was created for previous editions and there can be a slight feel of repetiveness here. Arrow has, at the very least, commissioned a new audio commentary featuring Hong Kong film expert and programmer Frank Djeng for each film. Djeng provided a track for Arrow’s edition of One-Armed Boxer , a track that I enjoyed thanks to Djeng’s enthusiasm and energy, and I was looking forward to these.

His track for the second film is easily the better of the two, at least for me, since he takes it upon himself to offer a very heartfelt defense of it. THe sequel is usually compared unfavorably to the first film by that film’s many fans. When discussing the second film he defends the story, the change of focus to luck from the first film’s focus on time, and he even defends the film’s antagonist, who goes a very different direction compared to Andy Lau’s in the first film (Lau of course has his fans and he received accolades and awards for his role, so whoever played the “villain” in the follow-up had the cards stacked against them). Djeng also offers his admiration for how characters are altered between the two films and appreciates that To is clearly having his own fun with the second outing.

His defenses and insights into individual situations and the story are all good but Djeng can feel to be padding things out a bit more this time around, and I assume it’s because he had to stretch topics between both films. There are a lot of times where he’ll throw in some random trivia that I guess could seem interesting but doesn’t end up adding a lot to the conversation. For example, right off in his track for the second film he talks about the American Bald Eagle and its significance in the States and it what it symbolizes. This comes up because Bald Eagles (including badly CGI’d ones) do show up in the film, but he doesn’t make any direct correlation between the significance of the bird in the States and its appearance in the film. The subject is randomly thrown in there because the bird shows up and then we just move on to the next topic, which can include Djeng simply reacting to what’s onscreen at that moment. That’s not to say some of this trivia isn’t interesting because some of it proves fun. For example, during his track for the first film he brings up Vitasoy when it appears in the film, leading him to talk about a controversy that occurred around the brand in Hong Kong. Does it pertain to the film much? Not really but it ends up being a more interesting factoid than others.

Filler aside, the tracks are still worthwhile and are most involving when Djeng focuses on the both films' strengths and provides contextualization around their stories, characters, and why certain events play out the way they do. The ending for the first film is ambiguous, he explains, because of how Hong Kong audiences would react if the ending spelled out what happened to the film’s star, which in terms of the plot was inevitable anyways. I also enjoyed when he gets into how the film can be viewed following the Hong Kong handover, and how audiences would have come to the film then. He even brings up films that are clear influences, like Michael Mann’s Heat , and how elements of those films show up here. When he gets into a groove the tracks are both good, but I’d almost say a select-scene commentary for each film may have worked better.

From there on the supplements are geared more towards the first film and found on its respective disc. For the first film Arrow ports over the audio commentary created for Tai Seng’s DVD (as a sidenote, Djeng previously worked in marketing for that company) moderated by Stefan Hammond and featuring the film’s writers Laurent Courtiaud and Julien Carbon. Courtiaud and Carbon end up receiving most of the focus (though not all) within the remaining features in this set, and for my taste maybe too much since it is in this area where the features end up feeling a little repetitive. Having said that I was surprised by how much I ended up liking their commentary. The two share quite a bit around the film’s story and characters, influenced by films like Heat and even Wong Kar-wai, and they share anecdotes around its production and filming. It’s all quite good but the conversation picks up when the two talk about the film business in Hong Kong differs in comparison to other regions and also explain how the script morphed from its original draft. I wasn’t too surprised to learn that the original script was significantly darker, Lau’s character being more of a clear-cut villain in comparison to what he would be onscreen, but I liked that the two explain how and why this ended up changing (some of it has to do with translating between languages). This then leads to conversations around their experiences elsewhere in the Hong Kong film industry and what they learned about the expectations of Hong Kong audiences. It all proves to be incredibly fascinating and, thanks to Hammond’s moderating, moves at a good beat.

The commentary would have been good enough when it came to writing the film but (in what I assume is being done in the name of saving content for posterity) Arrow ports over features around the writing duo from prior DVD editions. This includes two archival interviews, one from 2003 and created for a French DVD edition (running around 22-minutes), and another in 2005 for a Tai Seng DVD edition (running around 37-minutes). Each interview has a different focus, the 2003 one focusing on the script and how it was altered, the other a general discussion around Hong Kong cinema. A lot of the material within these two programs does get covered in the commentary but the two do get a little more into how they first became exposed to films from Hong Kong and do bring up their favourite films and filmmakers.

The first disc then features an 8-minute featurette simply called Director’s Overview of Carbon and Courtiaud , which is also a featurette on the writers but instead offers interviews from third parties including Tsui Hark, Wong Kar-wai, Lau Ching-wan, Daniel Lee, and Michelle Yeoh. Still, this short feature ends up proving to be a little pointless because all of these interviews are in actuality excerpts from a longer documentary covering Carbon and Courtiard’s experiences in Hong Kong, , entitled Hong Kong Stories  and running 50-minutes. This feature is found on the second disc with the second film. This is then where things felt to get especially repetitive because we end up hearing some of the same stories from (and about) the writers that we’ve heard in some of the other features in the set, and that includes the exact same interviews from the 8-minute Director’s Overview . Hark’s comments prove meaningful since he explains why, despite the cultural differences, the two writers end up being a perfect fit in the industry (a love of comic books helps), and I also like when Couritaud and Carbon explain how real-life events, especially related to crime, end up influencing the films coming out of the region. Outside of that I felt like I had been down this road already a few times.

Thankfully there is other archival material that features other members of the cast and crew of the first film, all made for previous DVD editions. A 12-minute interview from 2003 with director Johnnie To overseen by Courtiaud and Carbon starts these off. It’s disappointingly brief but he summarizes the state of the Hong Kong film industry at the time, which was suffering from a downturn in the economy, and how that effected getting the first film made. This is then followed by a lengthier 25-minute interview—also from 2003—with the star of both films, Lau Ching-wan . There is a focus on these two films (and to my surprise Lau seems to like the second one a little more) but the conversation goes into some of his other work with a mention that maybe one day he would like to direct. The discussion gets quite amusing, though, when he shares his very brutal and honest opinion on the state of the Hong Kong film industry, at least for that period time.

One of the better archival interviews to be found here is a 2003 one with composer Raymond Wong , conducted while the poor man is trying to eat lunch. He starts off the 27-minute segment talking about his background and how he accidentally fell into music (it sounds like he was initially working in the tech industry) before getting into some of his scores, including the ones for these films. The last portion of his interview then focuses on how scores are seen as not being particularly important to films there, so when it came time to do the score for Shaolin Soccer he had to fight with the editors and mixers to get his score to the level he intended. This ends up being a rather interesting insight into an area of Hong Kong cinema I see very little discussion about.

(As a note, a lot of these features were all made for DVD editions released outside of North America. Arrow makes a note that the videos were sent to them with burned-in subtitles. To make room for their new English subtitle translations they had to blur out the original subtitles, meaning the bottom portion of the screen ends up looking blurry. I didn’t find this to be a distraction at all and Arrow’s new subtitles manage to cover it all up anyways.)

The first film ends up receiving a lot of attention, most of the release’s features appearing on that film's disc, while the second film manages to get the shaft. Outside of the Hong Kong Stories documentary (and the Djeng commentary) the only other significant feature on the second film’s disc, and the only significant feature on the release directly related to the film, is a 6-minute making-of featuring interviews with stars Lau Ching-wan and Ekin Cheng. It’s more promotional in nature, the two talking about their characters and story, and that’s about it. Each disc then features the trailer for their respective films, alongside small galleries presenting posters, lobby cards, and production photos. Closing the set off is a booklet featuring an essay on the two films by David West.

On the whole the content Arrow packs on here is generally fine with a lot of wonderful information around the film and the industry in Hong Kong at the time, there may just be too much focus on the writing duo behind the film.

The features could be a bit more diverse but Arrow has still assembled a lovely little package for Johnnie To’s two thrillers.

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Out of Time

Denzel Washington , who played a hateful bad guy in “ Training Day ,” is a more sympathetic slickster in “Out of Time,” where he cheats on his wife and steals money, but has his reasons: His wife has already left him and is filing for divorce, he’s cheating with his first love from high school, she’s married to a wife-beater, and he steals the money to help her afford cancer therapy. So we sympathize with him as he digs himself into a hole. Any reasonable observer would consider him guilty of murder, theft and arson — and one such observer is his estranged wife, who is also the detective assigned to the case.

Washington plays Matt Lee Whitlock, the sheriff of Banyon Key, Fla., a sleepy backwater where nothing much goes wrong. He is still on good terms with Detective Alexandra Cole ( Eva Mendes ), but their marriage has wound down and they’re preparing for a split. That gives him time for a torrid affair with Ann Harrison ( Sanaa Lathan ), whose husband Chris ( Dean Cain ) is a violent and jealous man. Matt narrowly avoids being caught by the husband, and that’s the first of many narrow escapes in a plot that cheerfully piles on the contrivances.

Ann reveals to Matt that she’s dying from lung and liver cancer. Chris has purchased a $1 million life insurance policy; she changes the beneficiary to Matt, who steals $500,000 in impounded drug loot from his office safe, so that she can go to Europe for alternative therapy. The theory is that he can replace the money with the insurance payout, but alas Ann and Chris both die in a suspicious fire, and the feds suddenly decide they need the drug money immediately. Matt seems guilty any way you look at it — his name on the insurance policy even provides a motive — and to make things worse, a neighbor saw him lurking around the house shortly before it burned down.

There are more details, many more, which I will suppress because they provide the central entertainments of the movie (what I’ve described is the setup, before Matt’s troubles really get sticky). The movie is in the spirit of those overplotted 1940s crime movies where the hero’s dilemma is so baffling that it seems impossible for him to escape; the screenplay by David Collard is inspired in part by “The Big Clock” (1948). All circumstantial evidence points to Matt; Hitchcock described this dilemma as “the innocent man wrongly accused,” but the catch is, Matt isn’t entirely innocent. He did steal the money, for starters.

Director Carl Franklin (“ One False Move “), who also worked with Washington on “Devil in a Blue Dress” (1995), is frankly trying to manipulate the audience beyond the edge of plausibility. The early scenes seem to follow more or less possibly, but by the time Matt is hanging from a hotel balcony, or concealing incriminating telephone records, we care more about the plot than the characters; suspension of disbelief, always necessary in a thriller, is required here in wholesale quantities. But in a movie like “Out of Time” I’m not looking for realism, I’m looking for a sense of style brought to genre material.

Washington is one of the most likable of actors, which is essential to this character, preventing us from concluding that he’s getting what he deserves. Mendes makes the ex-wife Alex into a curiously forgiving character, who feels little rancor for the straying Matt and apparently still likes him; maybe there would have been more suspense if she were furious with him. Saana Latham has a tricky role as Ann — trickier the deeper we go into the plot — and is plausible at many different speeds, and Dean Cain is convincingly vile as the violent husband. John Billingsley is Chae, the local medical examiner who is Matt’s sidekick and supplies low-key, goofy support in some tight situations.

Another one of the movie’s stars is its Florida location. It was photographed in and around Miami, Boca Grande and Cortez, and reminds us how many Hollywood crime movies depend on the familiar streets of Los Angeles (or Toronto). Banyon Key seems like a real place, sleepy and laid-back, where everybody knows one another and high school romances could still smolder. As the net of evidence tightens around the sheriff, it seems more threatening because there are few places for him to hide, and few players who don’t know him.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

• Alex Carter as Dr. Cabbot
• Dean Cain as Chris
• Sanaa Lathan as Ann
• Eva Mendes as Det. Alexandra Cole
• Denzel Washington as Matt
• Robert Baker as Tony Dalten
• John Billingsley as Chae

Directed by

• Carl Franklin
• David Collard

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‘Venom: The Last Dance’ Review: Tom Hardy and His Alien Entity Go Full Buddy Movie in a Finale That Shoots the Works, Because Why Not?

The alien gets the good lines, and Tom Hardy completes his mumblemouth Bowery Boy peformance, in a sequel that's as fun, and rote, as the others.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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“ Venom: The Last Dance ” is the third and final entry in the Marvel movie series about a helmet-headed alien with scary teeth and Gene Simmons’ tongue who fuses with a mumbly overpaid Method actor. Or something like that. Since this is the grand finale, the film’s director, Kelly Marcel (who co-scripted the previous two “Venom” installments and wrote this one, now making her debut behind the camera as well), may have felt a certain lack of restraint. As you watch “The Last Dance,” the film obliterates any distinction between shooting the works and jumping the shark and just saying, “WTF, let’s do it!”

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But I digress, because there is — fear not! — a reliably humorless and generic countdown-to-the-end-of-the-world plot involving a cosmic villain and copious monster battles like the ones you’ve seen 8,000 times before. When you put Andy Serkis’s name on something, it’s a signifier of cred, but for all the personality he often brings it might just as well have been a computer voicing the character of Knull, who looks like the Crypt Keeper (or maybe Bret Michaels) with his head bowed. He was placed in a prison by his family of symbiotes, and to be released he needs the Codex, a mystic device that happens to be embedded in the body of Venom. And so it will be until one of the entities that make up Venom — the alien or Eddie — dies.

To ensure that this happens, Knull dispatches a fast-moving giant spindly creature (head like a soft-shell crab, multiple legs and tails) that looks like it got lost on the way back from a “Starship Troopers” sequel. It has a way of slurping down human beings the way that some people eat ramen, and by the climactic showdown there are several more of these monsters. I should mention that if Knull ever does get his claws on the Codex, he has vowed to destroy all life in the universe. When Chiwetel Ejiofor ’s hardass Gen. Strickland gets wind of this, his agenda is clear: He means to destroy Venom before Knull can claim the Codex.

But that all gets muddied after Venom shows up at Area 51, the site of a giant underground laboratory that’s about to be decommissioned by the U.S. government. Juno Temple is Dr. Payne, the scientist who still believes in the glory of the extraterrestrial matter she’s studying. When Stephen Graham, who someone should seriously cast as Alex Jones, shows up once again as Patrick Mulligan, the former detective, and transforms into the Christmas-green alien hybrid Toxin, she thinks he’s the bee’s knees.

The “Venom” films are part of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (that is such a tedious sentence to write, let alone contemplate). And maybe that’s why Tom Hardy, from the first “Venom” on, has chosen to offset the uncoolness of doing a comic-book franchise by putting his slumming in quotation marks, playing Eddie as a borderline doofus who talks like a grown-up version of one of the Bowery Boys. The performance has worked, in a certain way, because it kept the whole series light. But it has also ensured that the “Venom” movies are a lark and nothing more, geared to the arrested pleasure centers of fanboys: the more snark and CGI the better.

Reviewed at Regal Union Square, New York, Oct. 22, 2024. MPA rating: PG-13. Running time: 109 MIN.

• Production: A Sony Pictures Releasing release of a Columbia Pictures, Marvel Entertainment, Arad Productions, Pascal Pictures, Hutch Parker Entertainment, Hardy Son & Baker production. Producers: Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal, Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy, Hutch Parker. Executive producer: Joseph M. Caracciolo.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Kelly Marcel. Camera: Fabian Wagner. Editor: Mark Sanger. Music: Dan Deacon.
• With: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Stephen Graham, Alanna Ubach, Rhys Ifans, Cristo Fernández, Brooke Carter.

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