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57 Seconds was directed by Rusty Cundieff, written by Cundieff and Macon Blair, and stars Josh Hutcherson, Lovie Simone, Greg Germann, Sammi Rotibi, and Morgan Freeman. It’s about a tech blogger who receives a time travel device from a tech mogul and mounts a plan to use it for revenge.

The Plot: Complexity coming from conceits is a good thing for a narrative in the best of cases, but in less than desirable ones, it makes picking a direction difficult to do. 57 Seconds has a basic plot at its core, and without depth or focus, it’s still a wash despite the presence of time travel.

A plan within Franklin’s (Hutcherson) mind is currently in the works, sneaking into a tech summit to meet wellness and tech mogul Burrell (Freeman). Because of his backstage access, he has the opportunity to save Burrell’s life from a very loud assassin, earning himself an interview with the billionaire. Between that forthcoming chance, Franklin finds a ring dropped by Burrell in the frenzy that allows him to rewind the titular amount of time, and gets involved with Jala (Simone), a girl he met prior to sneaking about. Cundieff and Blair set things up without much fuss, but there’s not much creativity either. That applies to everything that comes in time.

Said ring brings forth exploits seen in many time travel movies, including unwanted attention from powerful figures like pharmaceutical CEO Thorenson (Germann), who sends his right-hand man Calvert (Rotibi) to look for clues of an inside scoop. 57 Seconds doesn’t offer that much of a rework of a judicial narrative, though, as Franklin takes a job offer from Burrell and gathers information to bring Thorenson and his company down, which doesn’t really require the time travel element to work, and it grows wearisome without any development of its own. Why only 57 seconds? Why does Burrell have an augmented follower who doesn’t do anything? There’s lots of interrogation of Thorenson’s employees and a generic plot twist about the assassin, but it doesn’t add up to anything meaningful or original.

The Characters: In an attempt to get around having to develop real characters or relationships, the filmmakers play coy with their cast, giving them base level motivations and relying on a light tone to buffer the lack of substance.

Franklin doesn’t have a personality as there’s little creativity to his backstory, or to his actions taken with the ring, and his brain power – or lack thereof – doesn’t help his case. He has good intentions, as his hobby/job of directing digs at monolithic pharmaceutical corporations is driven by the death of his sister, who died of an overdose of Thorenson’s opiate-based drugs, but the script never goes any deeper than that. Franklin doesn’t do or say anything memorable, and his subsequent activities like trying to con a casino over and over again for many successive days don’t make him feel like an everyman due to his stupidity.

Jala doesn’t receive even a single detail outside of an interest in painting. She meets cute with Franklin and after literally three sentences of communication with him, falls head over heels for him, despite barely going on what qualifies as a date. It’s not really a romance, as it never blossoms like one, but she remains in 57 Seconds presumably to fill a script requirement. Occasional moral support adds little to what could’ve been a more focused study of sci-fi journalism.

Bigwigs play large parts in the plot of the movie, but again, there’s no room for intrigue in the script. Thorenson’s evil is comical, but unsurprising considering his profession. While many CEOs are in fact, off their rockers, abusive, and manipulative, but the movie leaves him at that concept stage. Burrell similarly abuses his product’s influence, as his tri-band bracelets modify the minds of their users to encourage healthy living (although it’s a net positive, it’s still mind control) but the screenwriters refuse to build on the ideas, as has been an established trend in their characterizations.

The Thrills: Mysteries and drama are the basis for 57 Seconds, and one might expect those to carry forward into being the film’s focus, but Cundieff instead hopes to please audiences with excitement and suspense. Those things must be stuck in a time loop, as they don’t arrive until the last third.

Before moving along with the plot, Cundieff and Blair hope to provide a rush with some ring-related escapades. Only half of their ideas provide some entertainment value. Even though Jala’s prolonged presence in the movie provides little, the one night stand between her and Franklin is competently made into a sort of setpiece. When taking her to bed in his unorganized apartment, there are pictures and possessions of his sister, which would hinder his efforts if Jala sees them. Of course, she does, and the ring gets used multiple times to fix the issue. It’s redundant to do it more than once, but it’s an interesting moment.

Continuous financial games (in the literal sense) take up a portion of the movie, but they’ve all been done before, and better. Taking a casino for as much as possible ends the exact same way you’d expect; with Franklin banned from the premises and getting beat up by security. The only difference in 57 Seconds is the benefit of time travel, which removes the stakes from the process, leaving no chance, and thus no questions of the outcome eventually being in Franklin’s favor. Similar things can be said when he tries to get information out of Thorenson by impressing him with his predictive abilities. It works on the big guy, but not so much for the audience.

Corporate deception and espionage make up the second half of the movie, but the underdeveloped nature of the plot throttles what could’ve been. Cundieff splits his focus between Thorenson’s use of Calvert to try and get Jala to talk about Franklin’s supposed business secret and Franklin’s deep dive into the company history. Both are more engaging than what came before because of their topical subject. Still, it’s present and overpowered, leaving the whole movie less thrilling because of its simplistic ability. It’s even worse when the movie conveniently forgets about it to contrive a conflict into existence.

The Technics: Cundieff isn’t the expected choice for a movie like 57 Seconds; he doesn’t elevate the material with a particular style or focus, but it’s not such an extreme genre jump that the production flops entirely. It’s just another unremarkably made limited-release effort.

While it may be low budget, the movie takes place in a lot of nice locations that sell the idea that Franklin starts out in a relatively average financial state and has conned his way into another league full of super cars, five-star restaurants, tropical properties, and spacious living. Unfortunately, the effects used to show the occurrence of time travel look cheap, almost all of the little blood spilled is CG, and the cinematography by Andrew Strahorn is interminably average.

Indecision on the part of the writers is what really sinks the feature, as the tone is largely light throughout, and with the occasional throwaway jokes, it doesn’t mesh with the damage done by the antagonists and the threat posed by a mistake that lasts a little too long. By way of the same issue, it seems like Cundieff and Blair knew that the audience has seen this all before, making the predictability of the whole endeavor even more confusing.

All of 57 Seconds is full of bland déjà vu. It’s an acceptably acted, plotted, and produced affair, but you may as well rewind and save some time.

42/100