Movie Review: Short Time Starring Dabney Coleman
One
of my all time favorite actors is Dabney Coleman. He's been in many movies.
Sometimes he plays a bit of a jerk. He was the boss in 9 To 5, where all
the secretaries got revenge on him. He was the dad in another movie I
liked, Cloak & Dagger. He won critical acclaim for his role as
Buffalo Bill in the old NBC series of the same name.
An
interesting fact about Dabney is that he was on a top ten ranked show
called Madman of The People on NBC. The show got moved to Saturdays so a
new show called Friends could have the time slot. In the nowhere time
slot his show was moved to, it got canceled. I often wonder if he pissed
somebody off in Hollywood.
Short
Time is probably my favorite movie of his. He plays a cop who is close
to retirement, so he's taking it easy. Matt Frewer (Max Hedroom) plays his
partner and Teri Garr plays his ex wife. While at the doctor's office for a
physical for an insurance policy, a bus driver not wanting to get
caught on a drug test switches urine samples with him.
Soon,
Dabney's character, Burt Simpson, receives the news that he is gonna
die. Not wanting to see his son and ex wife suffer for lack of money, he decides
to try to get himself killed in the line of duty so they can collect
on the insurance policy. There's a crazy car chase scene you have to see
to believe.
It's
the heart of this movie that I love the most. He loves his son and he still
loves his wife. He even comes to her and apologizes for all of his short
comings and confesses his love for her. I like the scene of him just
driving down the road with his son in a new convertible on the way to
the zoo.
I
really like this movie. In this day and age, maybe it's old fashioned
to like a movie where a man really is trying to put his family first.
Anyway, I don't want to give away all the secrets of this movie. If you
get a chance, check it out.
Trailer for the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDkhKRWjYZs
