DVD Review: VERY LITTLE TIME

Ever have one of those days when you’re trying to get some work done but you’re continually pestered by other versions of yourself who’ve just traveled a short distance backward in time? Me neither, but that’s the premise of VERY LITTLE TIME a lean micro-budget (one actor, one location – I could literally reproduce this movie right now with my camcorder without leaving my house) from brothers Tim and Todd Wynn. It’s a familiar, no-budget rehash of space-time-continuum shenanigans that milks its familiar premise and ends up being more watchable than it has any right to be.

Ryan, played by one of the Wynns (I’m not sure which. They’re both credited as playing Ryan, but clearly it’s mostly one) works from home in a career as a consumer tester. Products are sent to his home, which he gets to keep as long as he submits a review of them (kinda like me and this DVD!) Soon he’s receiving emails from someone with the screen name ‘very_little_time’ who knows an awful lot about him (like the number he’s currently thinking of) and warns him not to open the mysterious toolbox he’s found buried in his yard. But he does and he’s suddenly time-zapped backwards about seven hours where he warns himself not to open the mysterious toolbox he’s found buried in his yard. Future and past entities of Ryan appear, continuums get knocked out of whack, and much technobabble is spouted. Ryan finds that if he wants to get out of the loop he’s in, he’s got to stop himself from opening that damn box.

The Serlingesque story has momentum but may have worked better as a short as there’s not quite enough going on in VERY LITTLE TIME to sustain interest for its 80 minute running time. All the plot devices are so clearly laid out that the film is less a mystery than a slowly unfolding experiment. There’s a lot of scenes of Ryan texting himself (which of course always makes for riveting cinema) and star Wynn displays little charisma, flatly delivering his lines in a grating nasally Australian accent. Time travel movies are inherently schematic and are usually fun to watch as you try and juggle the multiple paradoxes in your head. The screenwriter can basically make up the rules in time travel films and it’s a sub-genre that’s hard to totally screw up. The Wynn brothers didn’t screw it up, but they didn’t make a great movie either, just an okay one.

Visit the VERY LITTLE TIME website HERE.