This was a surprising candidate to benefit from the NFT's policy of giving brief theatrical windows to Hollywood films that would, thanks to relatively calamitous US box office, otherwise proceed straight to video. With an A-list action man director, a rising star, a reliable villain and a serviceable thriller plot, this is the sort of picture that used to be a mainstay of cinemas everywhere. Admittedly, it's not a first-rate picture, but it's a good notch or two above the level of your average Hollywood potboiler because it has (a) a story and (b) characters.
For once, Depp goes straight, as an accountant who arrives in LA with his cute little daughter, only to be accosted by the jovially sinister Walken, who informs him that unless he murders the governor of California (Mason) within the next hour-and-a-half his little girl will be killed. Then, in more or less real time, Depp is ferried to that assassination-friendly hotel last seen in In The Line Of Fire and races to get out of the deal, though everyone he turns to for help is revealed as either in on the conspiracy or liable to get shot.
One problem with this is that it's too big. Badham's impatience with a script that ought to be claustrophobic is demonstrated when he throws in an irrelevant dream sequence solely to pull off a talking-point stunt.