SPLIT SECOND

OUT NOW / CERT 18 / 90 MINS

Clearly a project where many decisions were made on the fly, Split Second somehow remains glorious. In the near future of 2008, London has been flooded as a result of global warming. Rutger Hauer is a leather-clad maverick cop called Harley Stone, subsisting on coffee, sugar and smokes, tasked with breaking in dorky new partner Dick Durkin (Neil Duncan). Stone has a telepathic connection to a serial killer who might be an alien or possibly Satan — the movie never really decides, and the psychic thing goes nowhere. British actors (Pete Postlethwaite, Ian Dury, Alun Armstrong) spout Americanised clichés loudly while splashing through puddles in the dark, and the whole all-over-the-place business is cloned from the DNA of Predator 2 and every slasher and mismatched-buddy-cop actioner ever. As a showcase for a mischievous Hauer behaving badly though, it’s almost matchless.