Split Second (1992 film)
Encyclopedia
Split Second is a 1992
1992 in film
The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films:-Awards:Academy AwardsGolden Globe AwardsNational Film Awards...

 British
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...

 science fiction film
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...

 starring Rutger Hauer, Kim Cattrall
Kim Cattrall
Kim Victoria Cattrall is an English actress. She is known for her role as Samantha Jones in the HBO comedy/romance series Sex and the City, and for her leading roles in the 1980s films Police Academy, Big Trouble in Little China, Mannequin, and Porky's...

, and Neil Duncan
Alastair Duncan
Alastair Neil Duncan is a Scottish television, film and stage actor. He is sometimes credited as Neil Duncan.-Career:Duncan's breakout role was as side-kick DS Peter Livingstone to Mark McManus's Taggart in Scottish television's eponymous detective series.Leaving the show after the first two...

. The film is directed by Tony Maylam
Tony Maylam
Tony Maylam is an English-born filmmaker for cinema and television.- Biography :Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he began his career as an actor and then television presenter for ZDF Bermuda and the UK’s ITV , before concentrating solely on filmmaking...

 and Ian Sharp
Ian Sharp
Ian Sharp is a British film and television director.Sharp was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn and Hatfield College, Durham University where he gained an honours degree in Psychology and Modern Philosophy...

.

Plot summary

In the year 2008, extensive rainfall has caused large areas of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to be under a foot or more of water. Rookie police officer Dick Durkin (Duncan) is assigned to partner Harley Stone (Hauer), a burnt-out and highly cynical homicide detective who, according to his commanding officer
Commanding officer
The commanding officer is the officer in command of a military unit. Typically, the commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitude to run the unit as he sees fit, within the bounds of military law...

, survives on "Anxiety, coffee and chocolate" after being unable to prevent the murder of his partner by a serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

 several years previously. Now however, the murders have begun again and Stone and Durkin are assigned the case. After investigating the scenes of several killings, they appear no closer to identifying the killer, with their only clues being that the murders seem to be linked to the lunar cycle, and that the killer has multiple recombinant DNA
Recombinant DNA
Recombinant DNA molecules are DNA sequences that result from the use of laboratory methods to bring together genetic material from multiple sources, creating sequences that would not otherwise be found in biological organisms...

 strands, having absorbed the DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 of seemingly anything he kills.

Finally, after Stone's girlfriend Michelle (Cattrall) is kidnapped, the detectives track the killer deep into the flooded and disused London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...

 system and discover the truth: The killer is not human, and actually some horrific and unknown homicidal, demonic form of life - Fast, savage, bloodthirsty and fixated upon killing Stone just as it previously killed his partner. In fact, as the movie progresses, each killing and "appearance" of the monster is an attempt to lure Stone closer and closer.

After a tense battle in and around an abandoned Tube Train, Stone is able to pull the monster's heart from its chest and kill it. However, as the policemen leave the scene with Michelle in a rescue dinghy, bubbles of air are seen breaking the surface of the area of water over which the beast had Michelle suspended as bait. The monster's body is submerged, suggesting that there may be more than one.

Message

Unusually for an action film, it has an environmental message. The opening scene contains this writing:
After forty days and nights of torrential rain, the city is largely submerged below water, a result of the devastating effects of continued global warming. The warnings ignored for decades have now resulted in undreamed-of levels of pollution where day has become almost endless night...

Cast

  • Rutger Hauer ... Harley Stone
  • Kim Cattrall
    Kim Cattrall
    Kim Victoria Cattrall is an English actress. She is known for her role as Samantha Jones in the HBO comedy/romance series Sex and the City, and for her leading roles in the 1980s films Police Academy, Big Trouble in Little China, Mannequin, and Porky's...

     ... Michelle
  • Alastair Duncan
    Alastair Duncan
    Alastair Neil Duncan is a Scottish television, film and stage actor. He is sometimes credited as Neil Duncan.-Career:Duncan's breakout role was as side-kick DS Peter Livingstone to Mark McManus's Taggart in Scottish television's eponymous detective series.Leaving the show after the first two...

     (as Neil Duncan) ... Dick Durkin
  • Michael J. Pollard
    Michael J. Pollard
    - Early life :Born Michael John Pollack, Jr. in Passaic, New Jersey, he is the son of Sonia and Michael John Pollack. He attended the Montclair Academy and the Actors Studio.- Career :...

     ... The Rat Catcher
  • Alun Armstrong
    Alun Armstrong (actor)
    Alun Armstrong is a prolific British character actor. Armstrong grew up in County Durham in North East England. He first became interested in acting through Shakespeare productions at his grammar school. Since his career began in the early 1970s, he has played, in his words, "the full spectrum of...

     ... Thrasher
  • Pete Postlethwaite
    Pete Postlethwaite
    Peter William "Pete" Postlethwaite, OBE, was an English stage, film and television actor.After minor television appearances including in The Professionals, Postlethwaite's first success came with the film Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He played a mysterious lawyer, Mr...

     ... Paulsen
  • Ian Dury
    Ian Dury
    Ian Robins Dury was an English rock and roll singer, lyricist, bandleader and actor who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and New Wave era of rock music...

     ... Jay Jay
  • Roberta Eaton ... Robin
  • Tony Steedman
    Tony Steedman
    Tony Steedman was an English character actor, perhaps best known for his role as Socrates in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure....

     ... O'Donnell
  • Steven Hartley
    Steven Hartley
    Steven Hartley is a British actor known for his television, film and theatre roles. He has appeared in leading roles on British television since 1985, including the series EastEnders from 1987-1989 and The Bill 2000-2002...

     ... Foster
  • Sara Stockbridge
    Sara Stockbridge
    Sara Stockbridge is an English model and actress who achieved a certain level of high fashion notoriety in the mid to late 1980s as the muse of designer Vivenne Westwood...

     ... Tiffany
  • Ken Bones
    Ken Bones
    Ken Bones is a British actor best known for his television, film and stage appearances. He is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.-Theatre appearances:...

     ... Forensic Expert
  • Dave Duffy ... Nick 'The Barman'
  • Colin Skeaping ... Drunk
  • Stewart Harvey-Wilson ... Killer
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