Andy Hayes (Jay Baruchel) is a degenerate out-of-luck gambler in Hamilton, Canada. Reuban (Randy Quaid) is owed money and vows to kill him. Reuban gives him an hour and a bit to get his life in order. After failing to find a hooker, they go for a short visit to Andy's grandmother (Jayne Eastwood).This is a small indie comedy drama. The starting premise makes no sense. One can't collect from a dead man. It feels fake but I'm willing to buy that Reuban is lying. It's never threatening since I don't believe he's going to kill Andy. There is a manufactured sensibility about the whole thing. Quaid is throwing in an Aussie-like accent. Baruchel is trying his jittery best. It would help if the writing is funnier and sharper. It's interesting to have Quaid and Baruchel throw lines at each other but this is nowhere near good enough. There is a final twist that could have been really compelling. It's just that the whole story isn't set up well.

Real Time is a surprisingly compelling film about a brutish hit man taking a young gambling addict, who believes he has nothing and shows him he has something. The film opens with the addict, named Andy, pacing back and forth down a cold and rather dilapidated city-block, memorizing the lineup for a forthcoming horse race and deciding how much to wager in order to win big. We can see how jittery and unstable Andy is, swearing at people he believes ruin his luck for the moment just by walking near him or looking at him, and the way he tries to avoid stepping on cracks in the sidewalk to adhere to the popular fallacy about avoiding bad luck. His tendencies to maintain his good luck tread dangerously close to obsessive-compulsive symptoms.Andy is then plucked off the street by Reuban, an intimidating hit man who is hired by Andy's bookie, whom he owes $68,000 to. Reuban informs Andy he has one hour to live before he is killed, following the order of Andy's bookie. Andy, while afraid and nervous about this incident, after a while, doesn't seem to care. It's as if Andy doesn't care after initial thought that he'll be killed. For one, it will rid of him this morose, ugly setting that he has called home for his entire life and has scarcely left, and it will also provide him a release from the shackles that his gambling addiction has brought him.Director Randall Cole conducts Real Time in, well, real time, meaning that the film progresses without the use of cuts that denote that a large frame of time has just passed. We spend an actual hour with these characters, and Cole refuses to provide cheap subplots to keep the story moving at a rate that would be faster than just following two men around. Spending the actual sixty-minutes with these characters allows for time to pass as authentically as it can and, regardless of the events that unfold, allow us to see in the raw what each minute is spent doing.Andy is played by Jay Baruchel, a consistently underrated actor, while Reuban is played by Randy Quaid in a surprisingly mellow performance given the actor's track record and his character's personality and occupation. Both of these drastically different actors work wonders for totally different reasons. Baruchel, who has been pretty consistent with his geeky persona in many comedies, plays totally different instruments as Andy, a gambler who fears he has already reached his end times. Baruchel's performance as a paranoid and unstable addict is surprisingly tender and gives off authentic vibes from the apparel right down to the shy, often feeble speech.Quaid, on the other hand, is simply surprising here. Given his recent track record of outspokenness and blatant remarks about the safety of himself and the world itself, I don't think I was out of line to assume an offbeat and over-the-top performance from him. However, Quaid is surprisingly laidback here, giving his inherently cold archetype of a character a believable human core. Quaid's Reuban is set on showing Baruchel's Andy how, even though he has made some serious mistakes in his life, his entire life is not worthless and that to assume so is an act of selfishness. Throughout the hour, Andy requests to make amends with his grandmother and even visit his old boss in a delightfully unpredictable scene.Real Time, thankfully, doesn't end with sentimentalism and a profound revelation on the part of Andy that his life is better than countless others. It ends on a contemplative note; one that tries to illustrate any particular deeper meanings on part of Reuban for taking Andy on this melodic ride through life, and how Andy may choose to live his life after this incident (he very well couldn't change a thing). Throughout, Real Time makes great use of its broken-down locations depicting a Detroit-like environment of hopelessness and complete neglect, along with establishing a rich soundtrack of pleasantly alternative rock music. But what it does, above everything, is concoct outstanding chemistry between its leads and give them both characters they probably could never see themselves portraying in such an effective way.Starring: Randy Quaid and Jay Baruchel. Directed by: Randall Cole.

Smart melancholic drama filled with clever dialog. Randy Quaid shows his chops as tough as nails hit man with a secret and Jay Baruchel is convincing as a beyond hope gambler with nothing to lose. The plot is uneventful but the chemistry between these two characters carries the story to its clever end. A brief appearance by Jayne Eastwood as Andy's grandmother helps to carry the films theme of luck vs self determination in a short but enjoyable scene. I walked away feeling rewarded for my patience and thinking just a little. Good stuff.

2008 has been a stinker for films - it seems nothing has gelled or been original - was Wall.E really the highlight!?!? - so Real Time for me was kind of a nicer way to finish the year.This is a tiny film - totally focused on the two main characters that just works. The enforcer, in a great turn by Randy Quaid, is there to kill a pathetic gambler, Andy, played by Canadian Jay Baruchel.What makes this is the conversations, nothing Tarantino-like, but somehow they involve us and make us care.At only 1 hour and 17 minutes this is short, but very well directed and most of all it is logical, neat, and the performances ring true. Honestly, one of the better films of the year, and I would recommend it as being a refreshing change from some of the garbage we've been served this year.