Bullet Points: A Time to Die (1991)
Over the years I have covered quite a bit of Traci Lords’ PM Entertainment career, but until now I had not covered her first PM Entertainment movie, 1991’s A Time to Die…
- Up on the Roof Top: The movie begins with a couple of gun runners up on roof waiting on an interested buyer. Down in the alley below there’s a young miscreant setting off one of the gun runners’ car alarm. After a harsh warning doesn’t dissuade the rebellious youth, the gun runner makes the rash decision to shoot the young man right in his gut. This turns out to be good for no one, the shot brings the police so the bad guys are stuck on the roof and of course there’s the shooting victim bleeding out on the pavement. This is where we meet two of our main players… Frank, a detective with the LAPD (played by Jeff Conaway of Taxi fame) and Jackie, a photographer who is working with the LAPD as part of her court ordered community service (played by Traci Lords of Intent to Kill fame). Jackie turns out to be a major help when Frank goes up to the roof to take down the bad guys as she prevents one of them from escaping with a well placed kick to the balls.
- Hot Water: Jackie’s actions end up getting her in trouble with Frank’s boss, Captain Ralph Phipps (played by Richard Roundtree of Shaft fame), since she is supposed to be taking pictures that will help the LAPD’s image, not putting herself in harm’s way… Frank takes an immediate interest in Jackie… he finds out she has a young son named Kevin, but that she no longer has custody of him after an incident at her home. Jackie was photographing a model, the model brought cocaine with her. The police showed up, found the coke in Jackie’s bathroom, the model denied it was hers and as a result Jackie was charged with criminal possession and had her son taken away from her. Why any of this happened really wasn’t made clear or I zoned out when it was explained.
- Get to the Point: Zoning out was a distinct possibility, because a good chunk of A Time to Die has Frank trying to woo Jackie… First Frank takes Jackie on a lovers’ quarrel call, then the two have lunch in the park, then he takes her to the firing range, then the two end up back at her place. Frank works fast. But Jackie is pretty fast too, she almost immediately sends Frank on his way when they finish up. After he leaves, Jackie then starts remembering the good times with her now ex-husband and Kevin. The brush off did not deter Frank and he stops by the next day with a gift for her and invite to meet him for a drink.
- The Time is Now: Jackie does meet Frank for that drink and that’s when she spies a familiar face, one of Frank’s fellow cops, Eddie (played by PM favorite Robert Miano). When Eddie and Sunshine, his female companion, leave the club… Jackie once again cuts things short with Frank and follows Eddie. Eddie was one of the cops that showed up that fateful night when Jackie was busted for cocaine. Eddie and his lady end up at a cheap motel, where they are setting a trap for Jinx, Sunshine’s pimp. Eddie ends up shooting Jinx right in the head, and who is just a few feet away in the shadows taking pictures? Jackie! Eddie spots Jackie, who hightails it back to her car… she races home and ends up causing a PM Entertainment car flip, with the cop cars pursuing her reckless driving ass. Finally something happened!
- Let’s Make a Deal: After developing her pictures, Jackie goes to see Captain Phipps the next morning, but before she can give him the photographs she notices a picture of Phipps and Eddie and sees herself out. Meanwhile Eddie is at her place waiting to kill her… instead he ends up killing Jackie’s friend who popped over to drop off Jackie’s dry cleaning. Eddie is conveniently the detective in charge of the murder of Jackie’s friend and that’s when he arranges to meet with Jackie and tells her to bring the evidence. Jackie goes to the meeting and proposes a deal, Eddie changes his testimony so she can get her son back and he can have the negatives. And if anything happens to her before that, those negatives will be sent to the newspaper. Pretty shrewd on her part and also cold hearted considering her friend was murdered and she was willing to let her killer walk. What follows is a storyline swerve that contradicted almost everything that came before it. Much like Jackie being framed, there really is no explanation to why this sudden plot twist takes place, it felt like a swerve for the sake of swerve.
As I mentioned at the top A Time to Die was Traci Lords’ first movie with PM Entertainment unfortunately it was also her worst movie with PM Entertainment. Taking it one step further it is one of the worst PM Entertainment movies I have ever seen, period. The story did not feel like it was completely thought out and/or they were making it up as they went along. I think there were parts that were supposed to be funny that did not resonate with me. The action was light, especially for a PM Entertainment flick. And the talents of Richard Roundtree were all but wasted here.
There’s a time to die and there’s a time to read Bonus Bullet Points…
- The Name Game: Not to be confused with 1982’s A Time to Die starring Rex Harrison, Rod Taylor and Edward Albert.
- Double Duty: Charles T. Kanganis wrote and directed A Time to Die. Kanganis directed other PM Entertainment movies including Deadly Breed and No Escape No Return.
- The Music Man: The music in A Time to Die was composed by Louis Febre. Febre did did plenty of work for PM Entertainment over the years including The Silencers and T-Force.
