Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Majorthebys Charming and brutal

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

bowmanblue I'm going to say now that I enjoyed 'Split Second.' Partly because, as I alluded to in the title, it's an underrated B-movie, but also because I saw it as a child and I am looking at it with a deep sense of nostalgia. It's probably not as good as I say it is! Back in 1992 pretty much all B-movies/monster-munching fun was set in America, so the sight of London flooded in 2008 (hey – it was a long time in the future when I first saw this!) was quite a novelty, let alone a beastie who runs around ripping people's hearts out and leaving them for the police, or at least one particular police officer – Rutger Hauer. He got attacked by the killer a while back and, even since then, has been experiencing visions and is psychically-connected to it.Now, the monster is in London and Rutger – while totally hooked on coffee, chocolate and pretty much anything else that's bad for you (except alcohol – he quit that!) teams up with squeaky-clean copper called 'Dick Durkin' (*snigger*). Therefore you kind of have a 'buddy cop' movie with the end of the world at stake.You may notice my slight titter of laughter at the character name 'Dick Durkin.' I don't feel too immature for that reaction, as the film is kind of tongue-in-cheek and knows that it's hardly on a par with Shakespeare. It's a B-movie. Therefore, don't expect much in the way of a budget. And, when I say 'budget' I basically mean the monster itself. You don't really see it all the way through, so if that bothers you this might not be your cup of tea (or coffee in Rutger's case). Plus the other downside is the script itself. It really does let the whole thing down. The atmosphere is great – dark and foreboding and the characters are fun, making the film good. It's only some of the lines which sound as if they've been written by a work experience kid that let the whole thing down. That and the lack of visual sight of the monster, obviously.If you've see Split Second before then you'll probably be happy to give it another go. If you haven't and you're into B-movies, then make sure you're in a forgiving mood and don't expect too much in the way of special effects and you mind just find it an undiscovered little gem.

D. Ceased I didn't know what to really expect with this movie, I'm not a massive Rutger Hauer fan, but I've seen a few of his works and have enjoyed all of them I have seen. The plot sounded familiar (however, as it turns out, it was very different than what I thought), so I expected to see a run-of-the-mill action horror movie. I was surprised though, I found myself enjoying it more than I had expected.In the future (2008), global warming has caused rising sea levels and flooding of the cities. Harley is a psychic detective on the hunt for some one (or something) that had killed his last partner. He is lead to a club where a girl gets her heart ripped out. The police chief has Harley work with Dick Durkin, a more "by the books" detective, and the two are lead into an apartment type area where another murder has taken place. The killer left behind a memento, Harley's last partner's gun. They find a clue on the ceiling, a Scorpio astral sign. This leads them to looking about the occult and the astrology. They continue tracking down the killer, who strikes every new moon when the tide rises. DNA tests reveal that the thing has the DNA of all its victims, as well as Harley's. Dick believes that the thing captures the DNA and soul of its victims, similar to how primitive tribes believes they gained courage from eating the hearts of their victims. As they continue tracking it down, they find a body with a similar sign carved into its body as in the beginning. They use this as a map to track the thing down into the sewers where it dwells. As the two make their way through the sewers they come face to face with the creature. A Xenomorph-esque type creature that prowls under the water. Harley blasts at it with a big gun that resembles a minigun, and Dick uses a big explosive to blow away the subway the creature is in. However, it is still alive, so Harley grabs a bunch of electrical wires, and they shock the water. It still isn't dead! Harley and the thing grapple and wrestle for a moment, and then Harley rips it's heart out. The three (Harley's old partner's widow was being held hostage) ride off at the end.This movie was pretty enjoyable, I liked the plot and thought the occult and astrology elements as well as the creature stealing the DNA of its victims was a nice touch and pretty fresh for this type of movie. The special effects were well done, but weren't as abundant as I expected. The sound effects, especially for that minigun thing were very cheesy and laughable. The creature was pretty generic, but effective nonetheless. There were a lot of clichés in this, and some of them were laughably bad, however, that didn't really take away anything from this movie. Rutger Hauer stole the show here, his character, Harley, was an enjoyable tough guy, and some of his witty retorts were genuinely funny. Alastair Duncan was enjoyable as Dick Durkin, it was great seeing him at the end go to a cold, hard killer, who handled his own when face to face with the thing. Overall, a pretty enjoyable experience, warrants repeated viewings, would recommend to any '80s action or horror fan.

ctomvelu1 Good God Almighty. The things Rutger Hauer does to make a buck. In this Blade Runner-ish dystopian thriller, he plays a cop with lovely hair on the trail of a bloodthirsty serial killer that may nor may not be human. Hauer has a new partner, a prissy but game sort who provides the comic relief, and a loyal girlfriend, played by the fetching Kim Cattral. She has an R-rated shower sequence, guys! The film makes little sense, and it gets boring rather quickly. "We need bigger guns" is spoken, a line we have often heard before. If you find yourself awake at 3 a.m. and can't get back to sleep, you might want to catch this. The gore isn't quite as bad as you might think, and the action scenes are basically Hauer and his partner shooting their guns willy nilly.

oneguyrambling Split Second is hardly essential film-making, but it is a prime example of how to make a low budget film more entertaining than it has a right to be. Put another way, if there is a calculation that divides a budget by entertainment value, Split Second might not lead the way, but it is a damn sight ahead of many so-called 'blockbusters' in value for money.But still you can't ignore the fact that this film runs on the smell of an oily rag, it's evident from the first frame all the way to the reveal of the shonky 'beast' near the end, a creature that elicits more chuckles than screams.In 2008 the global pollution problems created rising water levels, which left London largely underwater, stricken with a huge ongoing vermin problem, and created an almost endless night.Or perhaps you missed it… (I love it when the 'movie future' becomes the past.) Rutger Hauer plays Stone, a hard nosed, grizzled veteran who works alone and ignores everything in the rule book. He is a hard drinkin' loose cannon who does things his way, and has done ever since his partner and best friend was killed by a notorious and as yet on the loose serial killer.Well imagine our surprise when said killer reappears on the scene, literally ripping hearts from bodies and taking bites from his victims. Reluctantly allowed on the case only due to his previous experience with the killer, Stone is aghast (p*ssed might be more accurate but is a worse scrabble term) when he is saddled with a younger partner named Durkin who is everything he is not: a straight-laced, clean living logical thinker who not only follows the book but practically lives by it.As the gnawed on bodies of the innocent pile up and Stone and Durkin nearly cross paths with the unseen killer many times it grows more evident that this case is perhaps more personal for both Stone and the pursued, with the lines between hunter and hunted becoming increasingly blurred. The last straw comes when a human heart is express posted to Stone – with a large bite already taken from it.This is a fairly standard set up for many sci-fi flavoured films, the thing that differentiates Split Second is the humour. While hardly Beverly Hills Cop or Red Heat this film is laced with lashings of black humour of the driest kind, much of it from Durkin, who it would be fair to say is hardly the comedic type but still manages many of the best lines, his rant about finding 'big f*cking guns' after first contact with their prey still elicits a chuckle and his progressive hardening up as the film progresses is quite humorous.The rest of the film is to be frank amateurish, when revealed the killer and most of his previous actions make no sense whatsoever. How a 10 foot tall long fanged alien/monster can lurk in nightclub corners unseen, manage to package and address a human heart to the right recipient and also write notes for his pursuers is beyond me.Equally confusing is the presence of Kim Cattrall as a sex-object. As someone who has had the misfortune of seeing 12 minutes of Sex and the City any possibility of attraction is long since dead, despite the fact that when this was made she is in her so-called 'prime'. But here she is the dead partner's ex-wife, who is there to be occasionally nude and vulnerable… There is some mystical supernatural crap designed to justify – or distract us from – the situation, but misguided symbolism or not Split Second is less about the logic and more about the fun in watching Rutger Hauer play a bitter and violent cop as he chases some sort of monster.Obviously cheap and filled with blood and a few laughs, Split Second provides a stronger budget : entertainment ratio than a thousand Transformers or Harry Potters ever could. It still isn't amazing but you could do a lot worse.Final Rating – 6 / 10. Split Second might not even be around any more – I bought it many years ago on VHS and dragged that out the other night – but if you even pretend that you are a Rutger Hauer devotee you owe it to yourself to check it out.