Movies I Wish You Had Seen – Timequest




Timequest - Go find it and see it.

It’s summer, and television sucks for the moment. The eventual lull in movies with the addition of the ever-present lack of audience manners that permeates the suburban movie-plexes leads me inexorably to my DVD collection for solace. There are any number of diversions for me, some well known, others… not so much. And so, from time to time, I will bring to your attention something you may not have seen.

For fans of Alternate History (and quite frankly, who isn’t?) I give you Robert Dyke’s, Timequest, a 2002 toss-up with some really interesting elements. Dyke, as writer and director, brings us a thought provoking film about the discontinuity of time travel. What, he posits, would happen if a time voyager, (Ralph Waite), were to stop the Kennedy Assassination. What would be the repercussions? How would America have been a vastly different place? In a time when dystopian outcomes were virtually required in books and movies, and darkness was almost compulsory, this film offered a positive theme:  Politicians seeing a bleak future, knowing what might happen and working for a better outcome, working for a more stable society and a more secure future. This was not the movie that America wanted to see, and that is a damn shame. This, for all of its low budget reality and feel, is warm, sensitive, amusing and poignant. It is, quite frankly, brilliantly cast and edited with both style and class.

A cast that includes Barry Corbin (Northern Exposure), Shelly Marks (Madness), Victor Selzak (Salt), Larry Drake (Darkman), Caprice Benedetti (Practical Magic) and the amazing Bruce Campbell(do I need to say anything here?) plays a sweet understated tone. Discussing the washed up group from Liverpool that Campbell wants to do a documentary on is just plain fun and that is frankly the tone of this film. It’s not fluff. It is amusing, pleasant, compelling and in very large part a very good Sci Fi Movie.

In a summer filled with a plethora of uninspired vapid mind candy, this film, as a bit of a timepiece in itself, is a great little 92 minute ride.

This is Dome, sayin’: any film that has Scout (The Wonder Dog) in the credits deserves a look-see.

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