On November 30th 2013 the world lost Paul Walker and what made it even worse was that the movie Hours was just released and the film industry was starting to view him in a different light. Hours was enjoyable from beginning to end and it give us a glimpse of what the future could held for Mr Paul Walker.
Okay, now that we’re all sad let me say this. Paul Walker was amazing in Hours. When the movie started out I wasn’t too impressed because his character is an average guy without much depth. He also wasn’t a cop or a street racer or some ass kicking combination of both. He was just a dude whose wife was having a baby. But that was just in the beginning. Very quickly Walker’s character gets thrust into an extraordinary situation and we get to see the complexity of Nolan’s (Walker) initial reaction and subsequent growth. I don’t want to get into specifics because I don’t want to take anything away from your first time watching it. One of the more impressive facts about the movie is that there are a couple different scenes where her cries and they are vastly different. Again, I don’t want to spoil anything so I won’t dive more into it. I’ll just put it this way. His reason for crying each time was different and also what he went through between cries had a visible impact on him.
There was a minimalist feel to Hours. Not in some art house way though where it’s all in black and white with sparse rooms and mood lighting. Hours only had a few sets and most of them were just various places in the same hospital. Every once in a while there was a flashback that would, of course, take place somewhere else, but for the most part you only saw one or two rooms with an occasional trip to some other hospital wing. It also felt very isolated. Hours takes place in New Orleans during and after hurricane Katrina but Nolan, and the viewer, is painfully unaware of the full scope of the damage until further into the film. This is both a figurative and literal representation of Nolan’s situation. A man with one thing on his mind, protecting his baby from the world.
The movie was suspenseful but it did a really good job of threading in a plethora of touching, funny, romantic, and sad moments that came together to form a final product that flowed wonderfully. There were moments where I found myself laughing and smiling and then quite literally on the edge of my seat the next scene. All in all Hours was a well rounded experience that left me feeling emotionally exhausted but very glad that I chose to watch the movie.
The dialogue is also worth mentioning. Well, I say dialogue, but most of the movie is Walker talking to himself or to his newborn baby. But even though he was talking to himself it felt natural. It seemed like something any normal person would say in a similar situation. It felt more like a coping mechanism for Nolan than it did a tool for the movie to move the plot along and introduce back story. My favorite scene is one where Nolan is just sitting next to his baby and telling her the story of how he met her mother. One of the best parts of that story was that it didn’t take nine damn years to tell, unlike a certain popular TV show that was more disappointing than Captain Hook in a rock paper scissors competition.
The last thing I want to mention before I wrap this all up is that Hours had no agenda. It didn’t take any political angle on how Katrina was handled and it never once got on a soapbox to preach. The movie was about Nolan protecting his baby and it never deviated from that. The movie did, however, show scenes of the aftermath and scenes from the news, but that all helped to set the scene. I hate it when movies or TV shows forget what they are and start trying to push and agenda or become political commentary. That stuff is important, but the middle of my movie or TV show just isn’t the place. So thankfully Hours stayed away from all that and kept true to itself.
Okay, lets end this. Hours was really good and worth a watch or even a buy. Paul Walker will probably be remembered more for The Fast and the Furious franchise but I believe that this movie should come as a very close second. The Fast and the Furious movies are a series of fantastically self aware over the top action/heist films that always leave me with a huge smile on my face. Hours is quieter but more intense and heartfelt movie that will forever stand as one of the greatest works of a young actor and a great human being who was taken from us way too soon.
Hours gets a 10 out of 11