Panic has broken out on a Friday afternoon in a bank in Toronto. The six-year-old son of one of the employees has been accidentally locked in the safe. A safe that has been fitted with a time lock. This means that it will not open until Monday morning, too late for the young chap within who has an ever dwindling air supply. With time ticking away the staff desperately try to conceive of a way to break into the safe in a life or death rescue mission.
Those expecting the usual ribald gags and seaside postcard humour from the director and producer team of Gerald Thomas and Peter Rogers will be in for a surprise. Time Lock, based on a Canadian television play, is a taut dramatic thriller that doesn’t give the audience much time to catch their breath during its short running time. The film wastes no time in setting up the plot with the young boy becoming locked in the safe early on and events escalate at an expertly judged pace with frantic phone calls and various rescue attempts put into action.
Thomas makes the wise decision to focus almost exclusively on the drama playing out in the bank, only occasionally cutting to exterior scenes when absolutely necessary. This confined location, alongside the realistic acting from the ensemble cast, lends a palpable sense of authenticity to proceedings. There is no room for OTT movie heroics, indeed the film could almost be a dramatisation of a real event.
A genuinely tense race against time that convinces as a realistic drama Time Lock is a low key but never less than gripping thriller that holds the viewers attention from the opening scene to its taut climax.
British director responsible for every film in the Carry On series. Started as an assistant editor before debuting with the childrens' film Circus Friends. Thriller Timelock followed, but the success of 1958’s bawdy Carry On Sergeant launched one of the most successful series in British cinema. Thomas directed 30 Carry On films up until 1978’s Carry On Emmannuelle, returning in 1992 to deliver his final film, Carry On Columbus. Other films include the Carry On-esque Nurse on Wheels and The Big Job, plus the big screen version of Bless this House.
