Dave takes the elevator up to the twenty-second floor of a Liverpool tower block for a ‘Ken Loach meets Die Hard’ combo.

“It’s all very improbable,” mused a curmudgeonly Paul McGann to The Daily Telegraph, ahead of the release of Liverpool-lensed thriller DOWNTIME [1]. More improbable is the hyperbole from the Daily Express pasted across the front of the film’s video box: “Move over Bruce Willis… A British action movie to die for!”

No white vests here.

Only cardigans.

Indeed, if you were pressed to think of anyone that could be more contradictory to the gung-ho swagger of Willis’ epochal John McClane, the stuttering, soft-spoken shrink McGann plays would probably be it.

Forcibly retired following a period of ill-health brought on by a personal tragedy, ex-police psychologist Rob (McGann) finds himself at the scene of a potential catastrophe: Chrissy (Susan Lynch), a suicidal young mother, is determined to throw herself and her son, Jake (Adam Johnston), off the twenty-second floor of a tower block. Talking her down, though, is the easy part; it’s getting her and Jake to street level that’s the challenge…

Penned at the tender age of twenty-one by Caspar Berry, Downtime was ready to shoot in the Byker Grove actor’s home town of Newcastle before the Liverpool Film Office got wind of the production and lured it over to Merseyside. The city suited the needs of the movie to a T. The looming (and now demolished) St George’s Heights in Everton is the perfect backdrop for the action, while the iconic Spectrum Arena (now the HQ of a well-known betting company) in nearby Warrington provides the necessary construction height for the film’s multi-storey set.

One of the first films to be partly financed by the National Lottery Fund, the £1.9 million pumped into Downtime was larger than most of its peers received. In terms of how the budget was spent, Downtime‘s murky home video transfer does little to showcase the film’s impressively built lift shaft, which forms the location of over half the picture after Rob, Chrissy and Jake become trapped in it. However, the stunt work – led by industry legend Terry Forrestal – is certainly impressive. The lift-based action sequences are genuinely tense, and despite the risk of visual fatigue posed by such claustrophobic quarters, director Bharat Nalluri hooks with a strong sense of pace. His feature debut, Nalluri was reportedly poached to helm The Crow: Salvation (2000) off the back of Downtime.

Berry’s script insists on weaving some kitchen sink drama in-between the death-defying spectacle. Unsurprisingly, the two make for odd bedfellows. And when you add in the narrative thread of Rob and Susan heading out on an impromptu date – despite her being on the brink of suicide, and despite them coming from diametrically opposed social backgrounds (“You’re dead clever you, aren’t you?” spouts Susan) – it pushes the buy-in to breaking point. Credibility truly comes a-clattering during a godawful last reel, which feels like it was tacked on with great haste to pad out a short run time.

Downtime‘s producers were keen to state that sales were favourable at Cannes and other markets; nevertheless, the film’s actual U.K. theatrical stint in February 1998 failed to gross more than thirty grand. Reviews tended to match the schizophrenic nature of the film, but there was positivity among the backhanded compliments.

As The Independent’s Ryan Gilbey wrote:

“There’s some pleasant friction in the movie’s sheer absurdity. As Lynch prepares to shin down the lift shaft, McCann shouts out: ‘I’ll hold your cardie’. A line that would sound ever better on Bruce Willis’ lips.” [2]

UK ● 1997 ● Action, Thriller ● 90mins

Paul McGann, Susan Lynch, Tom Georgeson, David Roper ● Dir. Bharat Nalluri ● Wri. Caspar Berry

[1] Glad to be Back on the Boards by Kate Bassett, The Daily Telegraph, 2^nd February 1998.
[2] New Films by Ryan Gilbey, The Independent, 13^th February, 1998.