Mike has committed TIMECRIMES but thankfully hasn't changed the course of history!

What would happen if you travelled back in time? According to Back to the Future you risk all sorts of hazards, including potentially becoming your own father. According to The Time Machine you could witness a nasty future and nearly get eaten by subterranean cannibals. Minority Report even suggests that you tying to do good could wind up getting you stuck in a bind. So it seems that the creative forces of the film world are not too optimistic about the impact of time travel. So with this a history of time travel trouble in mind I watched Timecrimes expecting some messy mix-ups. I wasn't disappointed. Hector has just moved to a house in the countryside. He's an ordinary guy living a decent life. An unexceptional everyman. So when he sees a naked chick walking through the woods he's pretty intrigued. But when he goes to investigate what this woman is doing he is ambushed by a weird guy whose head is encased in bandages. Fleeing the scene he spots a strange building on a nearby hill and breaks in, hoping the crazy bandage man won't find him. When he is coaxed into hiding in a strange tank by a man in the building he suddenly finds himself hurled back in time: then things start to get complicated. Staying in just a couple of locations within a short space of time, the film creates a series of overlapping timelines that interract and intertwine to form a strange story of mishaps and idiocy. Bouncing between the bizarre (the naked woman element of the story is weird and inexplicable) to the awesome (there's A LOT of awesome injuries) this story of Hector's insane time-travel journey is an excellent example of high-concept sci-fi. The best aspect of Timecrimes is that there is no attempt at creating heroes or villains, no mega-nerd explaining all the science behind the action, just an ordinary guy who blunders into a bizarre situation and desperately tries to sort it out. It adds an element of believability to the proceedings that make the whole experience a bit different to the usual sci-fi experience. It's not a scientist who does something wrong and needs to fix it to atone for his wrongs (usually with a 'don't mess with nature' moral attached), or a man trying to change the past (with the 'what's done is done' moral duly embedded), it's an ordinary guy in big trouble. And that's much more cool as far as I'm concerned. In fact, it's not just cool to me: a Hollywood studio has already picked this film up for a remake. Oddly this is one of few instances where I think a remake could actually work, science fiction often benefits from some good-looking effects and a sleek, polished feel, so there may be a success story still to come. But before this happens I highly recommend you get hold of this DVD and witness the low-budget charm of this funny, clever and brilliantly constructed film. Timecrimes (Los Cronocrimenes) is out on DVD in the UK on 4th May and is available in the US now.