2:22 (2017 film)

2:22
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Paul Currie
Written by	Nathan Parker Todd Stein
Produced by	Bill Mechanic Steve Hutensky Paul Currie Jackie O’Sullivan Garrett Kelleher
Starring	Michiel Huisman Teresa Palmer Sam Reid
Cinematography	David Eggby
Edited by	Sean Lahiff Gary Woodyard
Music by	Lisa Gerrard James Orr
Production companies	Lightstream Pictures Pandemonium Films Walk The Walk Entertainment
Distributed by	Magnet Releasing
Release date	June 30, 2017 (2017-06-30)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$4.6 million

2:22 is an American-Australian science fiction thriller film directed by Paul Currie, written by Nathan Parker and Todd Stein, and starring Michiel Huisman, Teresa Palmer and Sam Reid. The film’s plot involves air traffic controller Dylan Branson, who, thanks to a mysterious anomaly at 2:22, prevented the collision of two aircraft and met Sarah, with whom he opened the cruel mystery of the crossing of destinies. The film was released in theaters and on VOD on June 30, 2017.

Plot

The film starts with Dylan Branson (Michiel Huisman) dreaming about a homicide taking place at Grand Central Station that feels very real to him. He wakes up with a start and performs his daily routine while watching a news report about a star called Hamlin that died 30 years ago, but its light is still reaching Earth. Dylan then heads to work, riding his bicycle to Grand Central Station to catch the subway to New York JFK Airport, where he works as an air traffic controller with a serious talent in visualizing patterns. After work, he goes to bar with his co-workers and receives a ticket to an aerial ballet performance from his co-worker ex-girlfriend, as a joke gift for his upcoming 30th birthday.

The following day, at exactly 2:22pm, he almost causes a mid-air collision between two aircraft arriving and departing JFK Airport in order to avert catastrophe, nearly killing over 900 people, resulting in him being suspended from his job. The day after he is suspended, he attends the aerial ballet performance where he meets Sarah (Teresa Palmer). After the performance, they go to a restaurant and have dinner together. Dylan tells Sarah about his father being a pilot and that Dylan also trained to be a pilot but could never overcome his fear of flying. Sarah tells Dylan that she works at the Howard Pace Art Gallery. Dylan also tells Sarah about him being suspended from work due to the incident, and he finds out that Sarah was on the arriving aircraft in that incident. Dylan feels apologetic about it but Sarah is instead thankful to Dylan for saving her life. As they leave, they admit to each other that for a first date, they felt a deep connection and it felt like they had known each other forever.

The following day, while on the way to Grand Central Station, Dylan notices the same occurrences (a siren, a woman laughing, a man saying "can I help you with that?", glass breaking and construction sounds). At Grand Central Station, at 2:21pm, he hears the boarding announcement of the Millhurst Express, sees a business man reading his newspaper, a couple hugging, a line of preschoolers where the last child in the line drops something and a pregnant woman under the clock. At exactly 2:22pm, a window of the station shatters. He goes to meet Sarah at the art gallery and asks her to dinner. Sarah points out it's way too early for dinner so they instead go to Central Park for ice cream. Sarah tells Dylan that she was a ballet student before she landed awkwardly during practice, tearing two of her knee ligaments. Wanting to lift Sarah's spirit, Dylan creates an improvised speaker for his cellphone using a paper cup and an ice cream cone wrapper. They dance in the park and Dylan dips Sarah, then they kiss. Afterwards, they go to Dylan's apartment and make love.

The next morning in bed, Dylan asks Sarah where she got her necklace. Sarah tells him it was a birthday gift from her ex-boyfriend, Jonas (Sam Reid), who happens to be the featured artist at her gallery. Dylan jokingly says he needs to compete and asks Sarah when her birthday is. They realize they were born on April 18, 1986, both turning 30 within a week's time. Just then, Dylan hears a car crash on the street below his apartment at exactly 9:15am, noticing it was the third day in a row the same incident happened at that time.

Dylan takes a cab with a reckless driver towards Grand Central Station. As the driver takes a shorter route, Dylan again notices the same pattern of a siren, a woman laughing, a man says, "Can I help you?", and construction sounds. Dylan shouts for the cab driver to stop and let him out. The infuriated driver turns around to tell Dylan to stop yelling at him but a jeep broadsides the cab, causing the cab's glass windows to break. Even though Dylan is injured he goes to Grand Central Station and sees exactly the same pattern of events. Dylan tells Sarah of these repeating patterns but with different people carrying them out. Sarah does not believe Dylan but helps to clean his wounds from the car accident. Dylan goes home and starts writing all the events of his day starting from 9:10am (a drop of water, a bug dying, a plane flying overhead, etc.) and realises that everything is repeating itself.

Dylan goes to the art gallery looking for Sarah, and noticed the art gallery is having a showing with Jonas' art piece as the main exhibition. Jonas has created a holographic piece about Grand Central Station, and Dylan sees that it's exactly like the events that he has experienced over the past few days (boarding announcement of the Millhurst Express, a business man reading his newspaper, a couple hugging, a line of preschoolers where the last child in the line drops something, and a pregnant woman under the clock). Dylan assumes Jonas must be following him, believing that’s the only way Jonas could know these things. Dylan accuses and attacks him and they fight in the middle of the holographic display. In the audience is the owner of the Keifer Art Gallery who applauds. He’s impressed by Jonas’ idea to re-enact the homicide at Grand Central Station and he has an exhibit related to it at his gallery. Sarah apologizes to Jonas for Dylan's attack. Outside the gallery, Dylan texts Sarah to tell her he feels terrible about what happened.

In the meantime, he finds a stack of envelopes hidden in his home. He finds out that a woman named Evelyn, a singer, had written the letters to a man named Jake Redman (Duncan Ragg), a criminal, with whom she was in s relationship. As he investigates, Dylan learns Jake was never convicted for his crimes as the police could not find enough evidence to convict him. Dylan also finds a news article online stating that Jake had shot Evelyn and a policeman named Noah (Jack Ellis) in Grand Central Station in a fit of jealous rage, before being gunned down by the police on April 18, 1986; the same day both Dylan and Sarah were born.

Dylan then visits Evelyn's sister, who gives Dylan a stack of letters that Jake wrote to Evelyn, as she could never bear to read them herself. She shows him Evelyn's necklace that she is wearing, saying that it is all she needs to remember her. The necklace is identical to the one made by Jonas for Sarah. Evelyn's sister also tells him that Noah, the policeman, was taking Evelyn to Millhurst to keep her safe from Jake and that he, too, seemed in love with Evelyn. Dylan goes to Grand Central Station to buy a ticket for the Millhurst Express, but is told that the service was terminated 30 years ago and the train is now known as the Poughkeepsie Express. At exactly 2:22pm, the station's chandelier crashes to the floor.

Dylan connects the dots and realises that he was Jake in his past life, while Sarah was Evelyn, and that he would kill her at Grand Central Station on their birthday, April 18, 1986 at 2:22pm. He realises that the pattern of events that has been happening was leading up to the day they both would die. He tells Sarah this and she does not believe him. As she tries to calm Dylan down, Dylan insists that they both should break up as he would soon kill her, which he does not want to do as he knows that they are soulmates. They break up and Sarah leaves, leaving both her and Dylan heartbroken. Dylan contemplates suicide, which he is unsuccessful, and a distraught Sarah looks for Jonas in his apartment. Jonas offers to take Sarah to Millhurst to help her feel better about the break up.

The next day, both Jonas and Sarah's flight to Millhurst gets cancelled and they head to Grand Central Station to take a train. Meanwhile, Dylan looks for Sarah, breaking into Jonas' apartment in the process. He sees that Jonas recognises Sarah as Evelyn and that Jonas was Noah in his past life. Dylan figures out that Jonas is obsessed with Sarah and that he has a gun with him, and races to Grand Central Station. On his way, he attracts the attention of the police and leads them there.

At Grand Central Station, Jonas tells Sarah he has the tickets to Poughkeepsie, to which Sarah says she thought they were going to Millhurst. She tries to leave but is stopped by a crazed Jonas, who calls her Evelyn. Jonas wants Sarah to admit that she loves him, but Sarah refuses just as Dylan arrives at the station. Jonas thinks that Sarah called him there, becomes enraged and makes his way towards Dylan with a gun. Sarah sees the events unfold as Dylan had described them to her, and realises that she is the pregnant woman (with Dylan's baby) standing under the clock. Jonas first points his gun towards Dylan and then towards Sarah, intending to take her away from Dylan, saying "she'll never be yours." Dylan shields Sarah just in time but gets shot at 2:21pm.

The events from 30 years ago plays out with Dylan/Jake protecting Sarah/Evelyn from Jonas/Noah and at exactly 2:22pm Jonas gets shot by the police. Dylan falls in Sarah's arms and momentarily closes his eyes, having visions of Jake and Evelyn in love. However, Dylan doesn't die and Sarah looks at the clock, stating that it is 2:23pm and they have both survived. It turns out that Jake was framed for murdering Noah and Evelyn as the police wanted to save the reputation of their detective. Dylan says how the dying star, Hamlin, finally disappeared but a new star was born elsewhere.

In the last scenes, Dylan and Sarah are shown living happily together with their baby, with Dylan having finally overcome his fear of flying and is now a pilot.

Cast

• Michiel Huisman as Dylan Branson, an air traffic controller at New York’s JFK Airport
• Teresa Palmer as Sarah, a passenger on board an arriving flight during a near mid-air collision
• Sam Reid as Jonas, Sarah's ex-boyfriend
• Duncan Ragg as Jake
• Jessica Clarke as Evelyn
• Jack Ellis as Noah
• John Waters as Bill, Dylan's boss
• Maeve Dermody as Sandy, Dylan's ex-girlfriend
• Mitchell Butel as Howard Hutton
• Remy Hii as Benny
• Richard Davies as Inky
• Kerry Armstrong as Catherine
• Simone Kessell as Serena
• Zara Michales as Ellie
• George Papura as New York Tradesman

Production

2:22 was produced by Pandemonium's Bill Mechanic, Walk The Walk Entertainment's Steve Hutensky and Lightstream Pictures' Paul Currie. Garrett Kelleher of Lightstream, David Fountain and Kel West of Flywheel Entertainment and Jackie O’Sullivan served as executive producers. Although the film is set in New York City, the actual filming location was in Fox Studios Australia and Moore Park in Sydney, Australia.

Release

Released on June 30, 2017, 2:22 grossed $4.6 million worldwide.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 22% based on reviews from 9 critics.

Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com wrote: "With a movie like this, it's hard to tell where the good idea ran out, as it seems to have been lost many drafts ago." Todd Jorgenson of Cinemalogue wrote: "The many contrivances diminish the potential for emotional investment in the characters - or figuring out what's happening to them and why." Brian Orndorf of Blu-ray.com gives the film a grade "D" and writes: "Currie can't connect the dots in a fascinating way, with the entire effort resembling more of a screenwriting exercise than a hypnotic overview of celestial guidance."

Edward Douglas of Film Journal International called the film "An intriguing exploration of fate vs. circumstance and coincidence that ends up being far better than it should be, but only if it's not taken too seriously." Danielle Solzman of Solzy at the Movies wrote: "If Groundhog Day had been made as a thriller, it's possible that 2:22 could have been that film."

External links

• 2:22 at IMDb