PAST PERFECT

US, 1998, 92 minutes, Colour.
Eric Roberts, Laurie Holden, Nick Mancuso, Saul Rubinek, Mark Hildreth, Emily Perkins.
Directed by Jonathan Heap.

Past Perfect is an uneasy combination of a police action thriller with science fiction, time travel. On the police action level, it is routine as Eric Roberts (as frequently) is targeting a brutal youth gang. Laurie Holden portrays his associate. However, when a number of the members of the gang turn up dead, the film switches to time travel. Nick Mancuso plays someone from the future who has been sent back in time to execute potential criminals so that they will not fulfil their crime destiny. Saul Rubinek is his bespectacled assistant.

The focus then is on one of the gang, Rusty (Mark Hildreth) and the attempts by the policeman to confront the man from the future. The future man is relentless and is finally destroyed – because the present can be changed from the future. Whether this makes logical sense, is another matter. However, it is reminiscent of the basic premise of the Terminator films.

The film is action-packed, shows a particularly brutal youth group. Eric Roberts does this kind of role without worry.

1.The impact of the film? As police thriller? As science fiction – futuristic?

2.The city settings, the dark areas, alleyways? The open road, tunnels? Police precincts? The tall buildings? Atmosphere? Musical score?

3.The title – and is reference to the future, to rectifying the past?

4.The police thriller: Dylan Cooper, his work, confronting the young thugs, Willy not sure, but think that was the name you said – checked IMDB and that was the killer) and his brutality, firing the gun? The members of the gang? His pursuit? His working with Ally? The car chase, the helicopter – and his losing his trousers? The arrests? The puzzle about the deaths? The encounter with Stone? The encounter with Rusty, his mother, the issue of his father’s death? The Bookkeeper? The final confrontation, on the building, hanging by the ledge? The present being changed? The irony of the opening and the closing of the film in the future – with the ageing Eric Roberts as the judge? Sending people back into the past?

5.The members of the gang, their brutality, the drugs, confronting the drug dealers, the shootouts, the stairwells? The pursuits? The Korean and his brutality? The pursuit by Stone, the deaths of the members of the group, the taking of their eyes? The sentence being read out? The Bookkeeper? The resurrection of some of the gang?

6.Rusty, his place in the gang, his attitudes, caught? With Ally? With Dylan? Confronted by Stone? The end, his making decisions – especially about Ally and Dylan and his father? The future?

7.Stone, the man from the future, relentless, his pursuing the young people, the brutality, their deaths, taking their eyes? The meek bookkeeper? Stone’s death – and the Bookkeeper stranded in the past?

8.How well did the film combine police action with the theory of time travel, the future rectifying the past?,