Paul Walker’s uncharacteristically low-key posthumous film “Hours” doesn’t make much of an addition to the late action star’s abruptly terminated career.
Walker, the “The Fast and the Furious” star who died last month in a car wreck at age 40, stars as a New Orleans man stuck in an abandoned hospital during Hurricane Katrina. After his wife dies in childbirth, he and his newborn daughter await help while the little girl breathes only with the aid of an electrical ventilator that her dad powers by hand-cranking a battery. Meanwhile, he tells her stories, reminisces about the past and fights off danger.
The movie is essentially a theater piece in which Nolan (Walker) is mostly alone on screen, making use of what he finds a la John McClane, but without the smart pacing or inventiveness of “Die Hard.”
Despite the extremely dramatic nature of the situation, Nolan is essentially a passive figure. The script simply doesn’t come up with enough interesting things for him to do, but instead soaks up time having him poke around the empty hospital and chat with a German shepherd while we occasionally flash back to dull scenes about how he met his now-dead wife. To the extent the film has an idea, it’s that people can be at their worst (or best) in extremis, but the situations it devises (such as an armed looter who wanders in to steal some of Nolan’s junk food) are blandly realized.
Walker’s all-American likability is as potent as ever here, and there are hints that he might have aged into an interesting character actor, but not even fans will be much attracted to this thinly imagined film. A couple of others he finished await release.