But Alex becomes jealous and possessive Milena responds with ever-wilder behavior, and their relationship degenerates into a maelstrom of screaming fights and angry sex. Relationship begins in a whirl of great sex and manic fun. She boldly propositions Alex at a party, and their She's separated from her much older, Czechoslovakian husband, Stefan (Denholm Elliott), drinks too much, parties too hard, dispenses her favors too freely. Milena is anĪwkward hedonist, driven by chaotic emotions, and her life is spiraling out of control.
Alex is a rule-bound academic, teaching psychology and living in a spartan apartment so neat that it's hard to believe anyone is home. In a series of flashbacks intercut with grisly scenes of Milena's battle for life on the operating table, the story of her affair with Alex unfolds. He promises that he only wants to know, and Alex's confession will have no legal ramifications. There? Netusil knows Alex did something wrong he alternately bullies and cajoles, trying to get Alex to admit that he ravished Milena. Why, he asks, did Alex wait so long before calling an ambulance? Alex says Milena called him-but when? Was he with her when she took the pills, or did he arrive at her apartment later, as he claims? What did he do once he was The police send Inspector Netusil (Harvey Keitel) to investigate.
The hospital staff is suspicious of his account of events the timing doesn't match her condition, and they suspect foul play. She's accompanied by her former lover, Alex Linden, also an American. In a Vienna emergency room, beautiful young American Milena is near death from an overdose of pills. Very intellectual affair: they read Blake and go to a Gustav Klimt exhibition they have a quickie on Freud's couch and visit Morocco in homage to Paul Bowles's "The Sheltering Sky." But they are soon be overwhelmed by the demons of their own desire. Alex (Art Garfunkel) believes that he and Milena (Theresa Russell) are having a Keitel was born to play sinsister characters who lead twisted double lives, and his part in Bad Timing primes him for future roles such as the detective in Cop Killer (aka Corrupt, 1983 -see littlemissbloodandguts' review - ),īad Timing's worth a watch but if you're looking for cold war romance and intrigue under the came roof, try The Russia House (1990), or The Double Agent (1962).A morbid, convoluted mystery involving a pair of lovers whose turbulent affair has driven one to attempted suicide and the other to something worse, BAD TIMING is obsessed with the power of lust and guilt. One oasis of satisfaction in the film is Harvey Keitel's performance as an East German Stasi and Czech Secret Policei-collaborating West German inspector. However, the character insight we get is the kind that would be more relevant to relationship drama than a cold war character study -which Bad Timing purports to be. The most the film has to offer is that the story unfolds in such a way, via Garfunkel's flashbacks, that we get some interesting insight into Garfunkel's character by the end, and reality turns out to be something different from what we had assumed. There's lot s of rough sex, and a near fatal drug overdose, but little actual intrigue, point or purpose. Russel is sent to the West by Denholm Elliot (an intriguing character actor whose talents are squandered here) to attract Garfunkel, a CIA'd-up psychiatric professor, who simultaneously receives a dossier on Russell. Two cold war spies (Art Garfunkel and Theresa Russell) enter into an ill-fated and apparently pointless, cat and mouse romance, but we don't realize it's going nowhere until we've sat through it to the end.
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