A couple embarks on a weekend getaway only to find the island curiously deserted. After stumbling upon the town’s dark secret, they trigger a time loop, forcing them to relive a demented cycle of terror with seemingly no means of escape.
When Craig Singer set out to make his fantasy thriller “6:45,” he forgot one crucial element: a good story. While he utilizes the time loop trope that has worked successfully in other movies of the genre, such as “Groundhog Day,” “Source Code,” “Edge Of Tomorrow,” and “Happy Death Day,” here, Singer takes advantage of said premise and squanders it by failing to deliver a lucid and intelligible storyline, opting instead for a plethora of gore, hoping that aspect will help viewers overlook his cinematic incompetency.
Bobby (Michael Reed) and his girlfriend Jules (Augie Duke) take an extended weekend vacation to a remote island getaway only to discover the island strangely empty of visitors. After exploring the island and many of its tourist attractions, on the way back to their B&B, Jules is attacked and killed by a man wearing a hoodie who then proceeds to break Bobby’s neck. The next moment Bobby wakes up in his B&B bedroom with Jules lying asleep next to him at precisely 6:45 am. This becomes the norm for an excessive amount of time until Bobby realizes the only way out is to confess a dark, disturbing secret he has been keeping from Jules; only then will both of them be able to escape the island and get back to their regular lives. But will Bobby be able to muster up the courage to tell her, knowing it will almost certainly end their relationship?
I had no issue with the story itself; Bobby concealing a dark secret that could tear him and Jules apart and him being afraid to relate it to her was believable, and by the time he finally summons the courage to tell her, the curse is broken, and they return home separately, but it’s when he arrives back at his apartment that the film begins its downward spiral. He is arrested for the murder of Jules, and as he starts to lose control, we begin to see fragmented flashbacks of him and Jules together and just how dangerous and unhinged he really is. He kills Jules, and we see recovered memories of Bobby at the island not with Jules, but with her best friend, the person he cheated on Jules with, his deep, dark secret.
This twist upon a twist was wholly unnecessary and served no other purpose than to confuse and annoy its viewing audience, not the intended action any filmmaker would knowingly want. The constant flashbacks and the did-he-or-didn’t-he narrative quickly becomes tiresome as we’re not entirely sure who he was with, what they did, when they did it, and in the end, I found myself not caring any more. Had the film focused more on Bobby having to tell Jules about his secret to break the curse and then end it when they left the island, I would have felt more contented. However, the additional resolution is thoroughly unwarranted and serves no other purpose other than to confuse and baffle, a component completely lost on me.
Available on Blu-ray™, DVD & Digital March 22nd
