SCIFI.COM | 5ive Days to Midnight
5 days to Midnight
Sci-Fi channel offered this June mini-series with an apologetic tone of regret. They have nothing to be embarrassed about. This series is worth watching especially in this lackluster summer television season. This D.O.A style mystery is mixed with just the right amount of sci-fi to make it different enough to watch. Oddly enough I found myself interested even though I knew where the story was headed. There are twists and turns added along the way with an off-beat directing style that gives it just that something special
It isn’t perfect by any means. This isn’t hard core science fiction or mystery fair. If you dig too far into the story you’ll find mistakes enough to break the plausible realism they work hard to develop. Simply enough 5 days to Midnight is enjoyable to watch. During this time of the year when there is little of any value on TV it is nice to watch something worth watching.
Timothy Hutton does a good job dancing on the head of a pin as the brilliant physicist J.T. Neumeyer. With a less than perfect life, the rest of the people in his life are supportive of his wife’s death and his raising his daughter on his own. On the surface everything looks manageable until a case shows up at his wife’s grave on the anniversary of her death. It has detailed information on his future murder set to happen in five days. This sparks an unraveling of his world as he learns this isn’t a hoax. Everyone he knows and cares about become suspects to a murder that hasn’t even happened. His own.
The layers are peeled back on each of his friends revealing less than perfect people with secrets of their own. Each with a reason to kill JT. Randy Quaid plays the police detective who will be assigned to the case in this future that is fast approaching. He is enjoyable to watch in this part, even if he isn’t given anything spectacular to do for most of his screen time.
Watch it. It is worth your time. Especially if your looking for something to watch this summer.
I for one am doing a lot of camping and watching Netflix.
