Movie review: ‘Hours’
Hours is a tough film to get through. That’s not to say it’s not worth the effort – it is, or it was, for me. I’ve written before about how much I respected actor Paul Walker for his many humanitarian efforts, and while I’ve never been a huge fan of the Fast & Furious movie franchise, I know some of you are. Paul Walker was fun in those films. In Hours, though, we really do get to see him flex his acting muscles in a totally different way.
Hours tells the story of New Orleans resident Nolan Hayes. Without getting into too much detail, let’s just say that Hayes winds up in a NOLA hospital on the morning of August 29, 2005 – the day Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 3 storm. We all know what happened after that, and to be honest, I often feel that the Katrina tragedy has been played out in film enough. Still, I rented Hours, because I wanted to see how this was handled.
Nolan Hayes is alone in the New Orleans hospital with his newborn daughter. The water is rising, the power is out everywhere, and the chaos is just beginning to unfold. If I tell you that Hours is basically all Paul Walker – with few other characters – that doesn’t mean it is in any way boring. Some might think so, but I didn’t. Walker gave, in my opinion, a truly solid, emotionally tense performance. There is a reason some refer to Hours as a “thriller.” It is. And it stars basically one person.
That’s not to say that Hours is a perfect film. It isn’t. It’s a little slow in parts, and some of the plot points are utterly ridiculous, but I keep coming back to Paul Walker’s performance. It outweighed all of the film’s faults. For anyone wondering if Walker could do anything other than an action film, Hours is your answer: Yes. This movie is a great example of how, with the right actor in the right role, he (or she) can deliver the kind of performance that makes you forgive a film’s flaws.
And yeah, as the final credits rolled, I did find myself feeling sad because Paul Walker is gone – but also glad that Hours was one of his final films. He’s great in it.
Photo courtesy of The Wrap