Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

How many times have you watched a movie just because the name intrigued you to no end? You had to watch it to figure out what it was all about. Like say – Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels. Agreed that there was backing in the form of Guy Ritchie here but the name in itself is fascinating enough right? Enough at least to maybe read about it and then take a call or find out what it is about and maybe just watch it for a few minutes and play it by ear after that. So when I came across Frequently Asked Questions about Time Travel (FAQATT) on the Emirates flight from Brisbane to Singapore, I checked the on flight magazine for details. It said 80 mins or something to that extent and I had a couple of hours more before landing into Singapore. And then I saw the 3 glorious letters that have come to mean Quality Comedy and most importantly Trust – B B C. The decision was made and I spent the next little over 80 minutes watching Garreth Carivick’s (may his soul rest in peace) last movie FAQATT. Coincidentally, about 10 years back, he also directed another movie called Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps – brilliant names right???

Ray (Chris O’Dowd), Toby (Mark Wootton) and Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) are your atypical nerds. Geeks who go about life with an ‘L’ board on their foreheads. L for Loser not Learner. They are into everything that a geek would be into. Technology, Hot Chicks (which they will never get), Beer, Yoda, Beer… did I mention time travel? They have a hope in hell to find a woman. Their idea of the ultimate woman would be someone who understands the depth of Star Wars. On one of their evenings out at the local pub, they get into an intense discussion of time travel. Ray is obsessed with TT and Toby with movies. Now Pete is the resident cynic and when Ray and Toby decide to take off on their fantasy story about time travel he puts on his usual best.

Now Ray decides that it is time to answer nature but on his way back he stumbles into Cassie (Anna Faris) who claims to be a big fan of his. Cassie claims to be from the future and that she absolutely adores Ray for having been the pioneer in time travel – the reason why she is able to meet him. Ray obviously thinks that Toby and Pete are yanking his chain but decides to play along. After a bit when he gets back to the table, he tells Toby and Pete about his corridor conversation but they laugh it off thinking that it is his turn to yank theirs. They only realize that Ray is speaking the truth when Pete finds himself on the other side of a time warp which leads him back into the bar but into a scene of where everyone is dead!!!!

FAQATT is a typical British comedy. So if you are not the one for geeky humour, woven seamlessly around technology then this one is definitely not up your alley. The story moves around several technical aspects such as time warps and time editors whose sole job is to go back to the future and eliminate people immediately after they have hit their peak. Like Millie (Meredith MacNeill) who comes back in time to eliminate our trio cause after they created the basic equation for time travel, they have done nothing worth writing home about. Or to make it simpler, a editor would come back in time and kill Shah Rukh Khan after Swades OR Alan Parson’s Project after “Eye in the Sky” if you know what I mean. All in all a reasonable entertainer. But not the best movie from BBC to date. 6 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi408552217/