Dead On Time from director Rish Mustaine available now on Amazon

DEAD ON TIME is the new mind-bending Sci-Fi thriller from ‘Calling All Destroyers Productions’, presenting Rish Mustaine in his directorial debut.

Featuring an international star cast including the talents of Ben Badra Affif (Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, Kanyamakan), Colt Cabana (WWE competitor and Podcast Mogul), Michael Madsen (The Hateful Eight, Reservoir Dogs).

In the film shot by renowned Commercial Cinematographer Michele Vittorio Ghersi.

And featuring an Original Score Composed by Marco Werba (Giallo, Anita, Made in China Napoletano).



Logline
Stranded during the Arab Uprisng a Scientist tries to escape with his latest invention aided by an American Action Hero stranded in the 80´s. As Clandestine forces close in trouble keeps brewing as our heroes must avoid capture by the US Army, Local Armed Miltia and and unseen Enemy.

Synopsis
The 'Arab Spring of 2011' is in full eruption, turmoil consumes the Mid-East region as protesters, rebels and insurgents wreak havoc and destruction.

A Clandestine American Military Agency, 'Black Halo', is forced to move a vital asset out of the warzone in Amrakistan. Mike McGuirk (Michael Madsen) sends in a Black-Ops team led by Segar (Michele Ghersi) to securely extract Moshin Dewar (Mohamed Zouaoui) and his newest invention.

Moshin sensing something is not right, escapes Segar by jumping out of a flying plane. Using his device to survive, he literally falls into the clutches of a slave mining magnate, Anwar the Butcher (Benbadra Afif), now holding Moshin for trespassing on his land and destroying one of his vehicles. Segar fails in to negotiate with Anwar. McGuirk under extreme pressure from his superiors who fear he is losing control of the situation, switches to Plan B.

Tom Bruise is summoned by ‘Black Halo’ to salvage the situation, but having failed in his last two missions, is reluctant to answer the call. But with the promise of a simple excursion, Bruise quickly finds himself in all sorts of trouble. Having escaped the Butcher, Moshin and Bruise are double crossed by ‘Black Halo’ and are stranded in the middle of hostile territory with no transport. They fall into the hands of the US Army who are obligated to co-operate with ‘Black Halo’. Setting up an insane finale as Tom Bruise tries to stay Dead on Time.

Check it out on Amazon.

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Interview with Director Rish Mustaine

So Rish, where did the idea for Dead on Time come from?

Rish: It was really a tribute to all those action films I grew up on in the 80´s. Especially the James Bond Movies, a lot of 80´s TV show´s. It´s something I just felt was missing in movie making in the last couple of decades, that enjoyment of an action movie. A lot of movies now go for that serious tone and that dark look and it’s the same everywhere you look, so we wanted to make this film have a different feel to anything around right now and it really is a throwback to classics like the 80´s tv show The A-Team or a more classic James Bond movie.

The film really gives that feeling, right from the beginning scene on the streets of Damascus, that feeling of a secret agent movie and there are so many story elements introduced very quickly, obviously a lot of thought went into the story, tell us a little about that.

Rish: Yea that’s very true. In fact the most important thing was the story and getting it right so that the audience would go away at the end not only entertained but satisfied. The idea for the story had been in my mind for a while. And by a while I mean years, so after years of mulling this idea around it finally all came together, I don´t want to say easily, but there was a lot of elements and ideas that came together pretty well and that’s thanks to having the right people around you and a lot of great ideas flying around. Just a great collaborative process in the end. It was a lot of fun making the movie.

There´s also some great cast members in this film. How did you bring this cast together?

Rish: Yea and that was by design. I wanted a bunch of new faces up there in the leading roles. And while we didn´t cast a bunch of fresh faced new kids, everyone in the film is a veteran but fresh faced enough that audiences should be pleasantly surprised by their talents on screen. We were very lucky with the big names of the film, Ben Badra Afif had just finished shooting in Morocco and we called him up and he was ready to go, he was amazingly enthusiastic about the project, which was really cool for me to be around.

Colt Cabana was another amazing talent. We got in touch with him and he was happy to work on the project but wasn´t sure if he could because of his never ending work schedule. But it turned out he was going to be in Spain the exact same weeks were shooting. So we both went to work to make it happen and he literally came to Spain at 9am one day and was on set working by 11am. Michael Madsen who is a huge talent, read the very specific lines for his character, and he loved the dialogue and was willing to be part of the project just based on that. So we met Michael in Los Angeles and shot all his scenes in one day.

The film features an original score by Marco Werba, how was it working with him and how did it come about?

Marco was another amazing professional. He has so much work going on, I don’t know how he had the time to even come onto the project. I had talked to other composers who were all very good, but after talking to Marco, he came across as such a gentleman and his creative juices were flowing in all directions. He really had a good idea right away of what the sound should be like. Just this authentic middle eastern sound and feel to the score. It really feels different from a lot of movies out there right now because we went for that right from the beginning, we were always aware that the movie is all set in the Middle East.

Right, I wanted to ask about that, the whole movie is set in the Middle East, in a fictitious city of ‘Amrakistan’. How did you go about filming the movie?

Most of the film was shot in Andalucia Spain, which is surprisingly similar to a lot of the Middle Eastern landscapes. Southern California too. And there are a lot of amazing locations out there and it´s very film friendly. We shot 90% of the film in Spain. We spent a couple of days in Almeria. We hopped over to Tangiers in Morocco on a boat trip from Andalucia to shoot some footage for ambience and to help sell the movies setting. Los Angeles was the simplest part because it’s a film making town.

Any new projects in the pipline?

Oh yea absolutely. We will be shooting in 2019 looking to release in 2020. It’s a movie about Cockle Pickers from the shores of Wales who find themselves in hot water from traffikers that have decided to use their small town as a smuggling route. I mean that´s just the basic premise, the final story will be deeper and touching on subjects and arguments such as traffiking, drugs, society, laws, some history and a little bit of action and a lot of comedy.

Wow, that sounds like a lot to look forward to! Thank you for the interview and good luck with Dead on Time and the new project.

Dead on Time
Cast
John Sjogren Tom Bruise
Mohamed Zouaoui Moshin Dewar
Michele Ghersi Segar
Affif Bed Badra Anwar the Butcher
Shea Davis William Hunter
Michael Madsen Mike McGuirk