I will admit that Bad Timing is well directed by Nicolas Roeg, a master of visuals - from his cinematography of The Masque of the Red Death (1964) to the enchanting Walkabout (1970). The use of music is effective if not as good, I suspect, as it could have been . The film falls down in three areas: the script, the acting and the length. The script is repetetive, often incoherent and tends towards the insular and melodramatic. The theme of relationships is done to death: there is no hinterland, just a monotonous unpersuasive intensity. The acting is a mixture. Not enough is made of Harvey Keitel and Denholm Elliott's talents. The crucial part is handed to Art Garfunkel, who, while not awful, is barely adequate. What was Roeg thinking there? Theresa Russell, however, gives one of her finest performances as an unstable woman. Where the film finally fails is in the way it drags on and on, with no real point and certainly few memorable scenes. The viewer is battered into submission by the repetitive, droning unsavouryness of it all. Not by any stretch of the imagination an enjoyable film. Rating:- ** 1/2 (out of *****)
