Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

A few years back the director of this movie, ‘Urgency’, a young man going by the colorful non de plume of Kantz, made a little low budget movie called ‘Love and a Bullet’ which is near and dear to my heart. I can’t even tell you why, but I loved that stupid movie. But back to Kantz, I probably wouldn’t go by the name ‘Kantz’ even if it is my actual name because now people can say stuff like ‘he Kantz direct’ or ‘can he save this movie? No he Kantz’. I wouldn’t do something that because it’s infantile and you know that’s simply not my way, most of the time, but some might. Regardless, despite its limitations I really enjoyed the low budget ‘Love and a Bullet’ so some ten years later we have Kantz back in the chair with ‘Urgency’. Unfortunately I won’t be having the same love affair with this movie like I had with ‘Love and a Bullet’.

Tony (Brian Austin Green) loves his wife Sofia (Lauren Carro) and we really have no idea why. I mean she’s cute and all but while that hostility we saw Lauren Carro display in Battlestar Galactica worked wonders, as an allegedly loving wife who snipes all the time, not so much. This particular morning Sofia wants Tony to stay home from work and lie around the house. Tony, Chief Council for the MegaCorp Pharmaceutical Company, needs to be at work today to help broker a 75 billion dollar merger with SuperCorp Pharmaceuticals. Today is pretty damn important. Sofia could care less and proceeds to bitch and whine and will not stop until she is thankfully kidnapped about ten minutes later.

You see, in the middle of brokering this billion dollar deal the chief council of this corporation, that being Tony, decides to duck out of the meeting to satiate his bitchy wife. Why he wasn’t fired immediately is unknown, but there you go. He makes it home, the bitchy wife is gone and a cryptic voice message is left on the answering machine… like people still have those… requesting fifty large for his wife’s safe return.

Now the race is on for Tony to secure the fifty grand, which he doesn’t have… which he thought he had but considering he let his bitchy wife handle the finances, he doesn’t

have it, not that this is going to be picked up again. Helping Tony sort through this mess is his irritating computer programming neighbor (Jeffrey Combs), his super official looking and sounding boss (John Colton) and his gay secretary Janet (Chira Cassel). We wouldn’t have mentioned her sexuality choice but they kind of made a big deal out of it.

Why would anybody kidnap a bitchy wife for a lousy fifty grand? What if they didn’t want the wife but instead want the Fedex envelope that the guy that got blasted in the film’s opening scene sent to Tony? If they want that, why didn’t they just ask for it instead of sending inappropriately dressed hot assassins (Beth Scherr) to kidnap bitchy wives? These and other questions may or may not be answered.

One of the things that was a little annoying about ‘Urgency’, particular in the first fifteen minutes, were the post production tricks such as the sped up camera, the shaky camera, the title overlays telling us who everybody is, followed by more sped up cameras with it all culminating in the camera moving so fast that I almost threw up. Now as the movie got underway I could understand why our director opted for these artificially simulated action scenes because most of the movie is almost completely devoid of action. Most of the movie consists of Brian Austin Green driving a mini-van talking on his cell phone or talking on the world’s most amazing baby monitor (it’s complicated) or us watching Green standing around in the park or watching his boss talk on his phone while driving or watching the gay secretary sit at her desk talking on the phone. That did not make for an exciting film watching experience, and a new appreciation was gained for the motion sickness inducing opening credits. This opening sequence also included a dude driving in a car, who knew he was in trouble, observed he was being followed, conveniently drove to a secluded spot and then rolled down his window to nervously talk to the guy that was following him. Dumbest dude ever.

I imagine part of the appeal of this tale might be the mystery behind why the wife was kidnapped and by whom, but we already know from the opening scene that they want the Fedex package, so there’s no mystery there to concern ourselves with. There is a back story behind that Fedex package, but it wasn’t nearly as intriguing as we would have hoped. Or maybe we just stopped caring a little bit.

Fortunately for us the action of watching people talk on cell phones gave way to some legitimate action as movie whittled its way down to the end. We got to see people run and shoot and hide and get stabbed and watch Jeffrey Combs run around with his arms flailing in the air like an idiot. Sure, this action wasn’t the crispest presentation of action we’ve seen but it was an improvement and this was appreciated.

But despite these improvements, alas, ‘Urgency’ doesn’t have much to offer in the way of action or entertainment. Probably best recommended for fans of Brian Austin Green who can be entertained by the watching the young man doing just about anything. Like talking on a cell phone. A lot.