Product Details

• Actors: Bob Gosse, John Leguizamo, Edie Falco, Flo Miller, Ellen Hulkower
• Directors: Danny Leiner
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Nextgen Video
• VHS Release Date: November 15, 1993
• Run Time: 30 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302981301
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #413,532 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty and fun film - early Leguizamo, February 14, 2001

By 

M.Marcus (Newburgh, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time Expired [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This short film was very humerous and funny. The hapless ex-con can't seem to get it right, no matter what he does. Great directing from Danny Leiner and John Leguizamo was hysterical. He's always great in a dress! You've got to get this video! Dan Leiner is destined to become one of America's great directors.

4.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious & Offbeat, January 11, 2008

By 

James Morris (Jackson Heights, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Time Expired [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This offbeat, kooky and oh-so funny little short (running time about 30 minutes) is filled with dead-pan humor and spot-on caricatures that will have anyone who has Italian family living in Brooklyn NY cringing with embarrassed empathy, and anyone who knows a Puerto Rican drag queen laughing their head off, especially if they know a bit of Spanish slang.

Bobby, charmingly played by Bob Gosse with a touch of pathos and solid straight-man timing, has just been released from prison, after a two-year stretch for robbing over 1,000 parking meters. Waiting at the gate is "Mom" (the character has no other name), his over-sized stereotype of an Italian mother; his nit-wit comic book-collecting brother-in-law, and Ginny, his pretty but grammatically challenged wife. Also waiting for Bobby is his recently released cell-mate - Ruby, a Puerto Rican drag queen, played to the Carmen Miranda hilt by John Leguizamo. For a heterosexual, Mr. Leguizamo is one of the funniest and most skilled female illusionists to ever don a pair of spiked heels.

"Who's that Bobby?" is his wife's first question. Bobby pretends that Ruby is the wife of one his fellow prisoners and he's just delivering a message. But we soon find out that Ruby and Bobby have a lot more to give each other than words.

Unable to legally work in his old profession as a locksmith, Bobby spends the next several weeks moping around, while Ginny wonders why her husband can't function in bed, never suspecting he's pining for Ruby. In one of the funniest scenes, Bobby tells Ruby he's working on a plan to leave his wife and run away with Ruby in "Two...well, two and a half months...", but feisty Ruby will not be pushed to the back of his life - she wants her man, now - all of him, and she expects the promises he made in prison to be kept.

There are comic touches that are so subtle, that some of my friends completely missed them when I insisted they watch this film. "I got a job wallpapering", Bobby lies to his mother, as he leaves for a rendezvous with Ruby. "Well, that's better than sitting around like a bag of doughnuts" she deadpans. Funny ONLY if you've met as many Brooklyn Italians mothers as I have; the delivery is pure guido and the payoff is sublime. Flo Miller as "Mom" has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

Bobby's brother-in-law comes home with a Fantastic Four comic, devastated that The Thing may be leaving the group. "Maybe The Thing has something going on with She-Hulk", Bobby muses, obviously thinking about Ruby, even as his brother-in-law declares him a genius and tells him he should be writing comic books for a living. "I'll think about it", says Bobby. The brother-in-law is also a scream; anybody who knows anybody who has a dead-beat, useless unemployable family member will howl with laughter.

As for Ginny - although we feel sorry for her as she plots to get her man to love her again, we can't help but laughing as she heads out the door to work in her waitress outfit, because Edie Falco as Ginny is the quintessential Italian coffee-shop waitress. Written and directed by Danny Leiner, the casting, direction and editing are flawless, packing the 30 minute film with enough detail for a full-length feature, while trimming the script to a taut and very satisfying pace.

But it is the inevitable confrontation scene between Ruby and Ginny that is the highlight of the movie; Leguizamo is every inch the spurned Chiquita, spitting fire and Latina venom with every "puta" and "coño" she utters. The end may be predictable (or is it?) but the delivery is half the fun.

This little gem of a comedy is on my top-ten list of films that I own on VHS that I'd like to see released on DVD. Unfortunately, it's also on my top-ten list of films that may never make it - it's just too little-known, although I'm hoping it may pop up one day on a collection of gay shorts. Way too precious for its undeserved obscurity, it's very funny, oddly touching, and highly recommended.