I didn't know what to expect before watching this film. My hopes were that it would be similar to "14 Hours", the 2005 TV movie about Tropical Storm Allison, starring Rick Schroder, JoBeth Williams, and Kris Kristofferson. That one was a true story, also set entirely in a hospital, and featuring extremely good action sequences of the hospital flooding, as well as attempts to keep a new-born baby alive. I assumed that a bigger-budget movie about a bigger and more devastating storm (Katrina) could only be, well, bigger and more exciting.I was wrong."Hours" has barely any action at all. And the only scenes of the storm are from archive news reports. The film takes place almost entirely in a single hospital room and the corridor outside it. There are a few brief (and unnecessary) flashbacks to earlier moments in the protagonist's life, one brief scene on a roof, and a few scattered scenes in the hospital's generator room. And that's it.This film is NOT about a storm. It is about a father bonding with his baby during a power-outage caused by the storm, as he is forced to hand-crank a generator every couple of minutes to put a bit more juice into the depleted battery of his baby's life-support machine. That's the whole story. He meets a cute dog, and a couple of mindless looting thugs. But essentially, it's a film about a guy turning a handle and talking to a motionless baby.And yet somehow it is brilliant!The dialogue is beautifully written; natural, raw, and filled with emotional honesty. The acting from Paul Walker is sublime, nuanced, and heart-breaking. The direction is well-judged, with a finely tuned mixture of quiet, intimate character study, and precision winding-up of the tension, aided by some subtle and finessed editing, music, and sound design.Ultimately, this film is an exercise in making something substantial and satisfying out of nothing much at all. It succeeds completely in all it sets out to do, and is a thoroughly engrossing cinematic experience. It also feels like a true story - which I assumed it was throughout - but is actually a work of fiction. And that, despite the lack of action, is actually the only disappointing thing about it. I would have liked to look-up the real guy and his daughter online to find out how their lives have been since Katrina.So despite not meeting my initial hopes and expectations, this film was a near-total success, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

Unfortunately, films are supposed to be 90 minutes long. What you have here is a great 50-minute idea. There are two choices for the filmmaker. Make a 50-minute film (which won't qualify for most festivals and certainly not for wide release) or come up with more plot complications for your script.Some of the reviews say this isn't "realistic." They didn't pay enough attention to the news in 2005. Things like this did happen during Katrina, and they will happen again, guaranteed. People who take too much effort to keep alive get triaged and left to die. Major disasters don't come around often, and people in "civilized" countries think they are immune to this level of logistical problem, but they are not. Next 9.0 earthquake in California, it will also be this bad and worse. People will be dying in the hallways or hospital lawns, unattended, undrugged, in pain, bleeding. So that's not a problem I had with it. I believed in the realism.The real weakness is, there's really only one plot problem to be solved, and we keep getting riffs on that one thing. Watching this felt like listening to a song with only two notes...and for 90 minutes. When the dog arrives, you nearly weep in relief that it's something else (though not much of a something), but the dog doesn't get to stay around or get developed as a character. (and the baby isn't a character at all. It's a Macguffin, at best.) By the time other characters appear, you're already numb with boredom, and it's too late to save the film.But Walker's acting is good, so it deserves some stars.

initially the concept of a family enduring a personal crisis in the midst of Hurricane Katrina seemed worth a view. It took but moments to become annoyed with the overly-delightful wife and contrived story of the romance and marriage of Abigail and Nolan. Flashbacks failed to engage the viewer. The story's hospital leadership obviously had failed to plan for any type of disaster, either internal or external. The evacuation reminded me of the desperate people trying to board the last helicopter out of Viet Nam. Every man for himself. What kind of physician discusses the outcome of a crisis birth with the spouse/father in a hallway near a crowded waiting area? This guy slaps the poor fellow on the back, implying a hearty "Buck up!". It seemed obvious that the producers cut the film budget by failing to employ a consultant in health care. Every aspect of the hospital and infant care scenarios shouted " Implausible!!" From the kitchen encounter to housing an unstable newborn in a glorified but outdated incubator in a private room with no nurse in direct attendance: ridiculous. Paul Walker's acting ability in showing us the path to delirium due to sleep deficit and near- panic were worthy of a few stars. But his skill could not buoy a sinking tugboat.

I watched this because I have always believed Paul Walker had been seriously overlooked as an amazing, authentic artist.This is one of those movies you must watch uninterrupted to the very end. Trust me. Stay with this picture. Stay with the father in his solitude and desperation. You will understand better the emotional experience at the very end. You will look back and realize just how much you were effected by this quiet, yet powerful film.This film also gives the viewer an idea of the unimaginable circumstances so many found themselves in when Katrina hit. It must have been truly terrifying. I will watch it again. In fact, I will buy it.