Bad Timing - Criterion Collection |  | Director: Nicolas Roeg
Actors: Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell, Harvey Keitel, Denholm Elliott, Daniel Massey
Studio: Criterion
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.95
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Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 42082
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: Czech (Original Language), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), German (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 123 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.5 x 0.5
MPN: PMIDCC1615D
ISBN: 1559409630
UPC: 715515016520
EAN: 9781559409636
ASIN: B00005JMVQ
Theatrical Release Date: October 1980
Release Date: September 27, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 09/27/2005 Run time: 122 minutes
Amazon.com
A choppy, unsettling meditation on sexual obsession, Nicholas Roeg's Bad Timing stars Theresa Russell and Art Garfunkel as Milena and Alex, two lovers pursuing a torrid relationship in late-1970s Vienna. The movie opens with Milena being rushed to the hospital for an apparent suicide attempt. Alex, a psychology professor, proceeds to play it cool as he's questioned by Inspector Netusil (Harvey Keitel). As Milena fights for her life on the operating table, the story of how she and Alex came together is revealed in startlingly raw passages of lust and bursts of raw emotion. Roeg throws the narrative out of joint with flashbacks and jarring editing, skillfully turning this story of a love affair into a mystery. The scene in which Milena aggressively seduces Alex on a stairwell is a bravura, gutsy performance from Russell. What's even more startling is the odd casting of this film. After all, that is the bare backside of the guy who most famously provided harmonies on "Scarborough Fair." Roeg, clearly enamored with casting musicians in lead roles (David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth and Mick Jagger in Performance) also approaches the editing of the film as though it were music, with abrupt, discordant cuts and strange juxtapositions. The film--of a tradition of sexually frank films like Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris--is yet another reminder of how deeply filmmakers of the '70s were willing to mine human emotions, especially unpleasant ones. -- Ryan Boudinot
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
 Dated but entertaining February 5, 2010
Clark D. Young (Fort Worth, TX, USA)
I bought this title because it includes a scene with Dana Gillespie. I knew that Art Garfunkel was in the movie before I purchased it, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Theresa Russell and Harvey Keitel also appear in the movie. It was fun to see how young everyone was. Although dated in some of its dialogue, I found this movie entertaining for fans of Theresa Russell especially.
 Nicholas Roeg's Best Film September 24, 2009
carol irvin (United States)
Nicholas Roeg used his real life wife, Theresa Russell, as the female love interest in this, his best film. Art Garfunkel plays the male lead, a professor, in that phase of his life when he was acting instead of singing. This film has been compared to LAST TANGO IN PARIS. Its theme of sexual obsession between an unlikely man and woman is similar. However, the obsession in LAST TANGO is kicked off by Brando's wife's suicide. There is no cause in BAD TIMING which similarly explains the man's obsession. These two come together with wild, animalistic lust and it never seems like there is any more than that. However, it is apparent that these two are terrible for one another. The film is shot in a jerky fashion (deliberately) with flashes back and forward in time. It produces a very clashing effect. If the couple were a musical composition, you would judge it/them as atonal and dissonant. There is not one element of harmony to this couple other than when they animalistically mate. What does a musician dread as his worst nightmare? He fears losing his timing. The timing is bad throughout and thus the affair is always poised on the edge of oblivion, the disharmony threatening to shatter it. Harvey Keitel also plays a police officer in this movie. This was before he only played leading roles.
 bad timing is just bad acting September 5, 2009
Ms. Gail J. Kernius (Victoria BC Canada)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Art garfunkel should stick to music where he has much talent. In this film he plays a man 'obsessed' with Teresa Russell and there is nothing obsessing in his acting or his emotional delivery that makes us think that.The chronology mish-mash isn't interesting and the so-called suspense element is just too long to be effective. I couldn't help laughing at every cigarette consumed in this movie-trying to copy an art film, Garfinkel looks like a poor example of the Marlboro man he is trying to portray.
Who is going to believe that someone like Russell would fall for Art in the first place. If I could have given this movie less then one star I would have. Save your money!
Painfully Bad January 20, 2009
Dangle's girl (Astoria, NY United States)
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
This movie is useful in only one sense: It illustrates that all Criterion Collection films are not classics. This is inept at best, laughably bad in spots and sports a misogynistic streak a mile wide. Art Garfunkel is the least convincing romantic lead since Keanu Reeves--only he lacks Reeves' charisma, if you can believe it. From no camera angle is Garfunkel remotely attractive and its ludicrous that Theresa Russell would so much as give him the time of day if she weren't paid. A lot. Russell does a bit better, but the director allows her to indulge her worst acting-class instincts in spots. Keitel is just silly, pseudo German accent and all. To cap it off, in scenes where Russell's character is explored, the song "Who Are You?" blares over the soundtrack, completely shattering whatever film noir mood had been created.
Don't waste two hours of your life on this.
 Nicolas Roeg delves into erotic obsession in this film, with surprising results... January 18, 2009
Roberto Frangie (Leon, Gto. Mexico)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
His movie rates high in production value and acting and has an innovative approach to an old story...
The film is basically a character study... Alex (Art Garfunkel) is a depressingly dark and shadowy American psychoanalyst living in Vienna... Theresa Russell plays Milena, a resonant, carefree American girl... They meet by chance at a party and are thrown into a roller-coaster ride of an erotic relationship... He wants to smash her free spirit because he can't understand it, but she won't let him... The result is a near-fatal break-up...
Roeg comes close to the story from the middle (obeying Jean-Luc Godard's authoritative saying, a film "must have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order." We quickly move to the different parts of Alex and Milena's relationship, moving through time as if it were Jell-O. The editing is intricate, but not confusing... As we change location back and forth, we begin to see more clearly how these two unlikely lovers ever got together...
The motion picture is filled with exceptional images, and Theresa Russell is outstanding...
Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
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