NIGHT ON EARTH
A film review by Ken Johnson
Copyright 1992 Ken Johnson
128 min., R, Comedy, 1992 Director: Jim Jarmusch Cast: Winona Ryder, Gena Rowlands, Giancarlo Esposito, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Rosie Perez, Isaach de Bankole, Beatrice Dalle, Roberto Benigni, Paolo Bonacelli, Matti Pellonpaa, Kari Vaananen, Sakari Kuosmahen, Tomi Salnela, Lisanne Falk
The film takes a look at five cab drivers, in five cities (Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, and Helinski), in one night. The first city, Los Angeles, has cab driver Winona Ryder taking Gena Rowlands from the airport to her house in Beverly Hills. The second city, New York, has cab driver Armin Mueller-Stahl, who has just come to the U.S. from East Germany, who can't drive a cab, and who doesn't know New York, pick up black Giancarlo Esposito, who takes over as the driver so he can reach his destination. The third city, Paris, has black cab driver Isaach de Bankole, who picks up blind Beatrice Dalle, who complains about everything. The fourth city, Rome, has cab driver Roberto Benigni, who picks up priest Paolo Bonacelli, and starts confessing to him in the cab. The fifth city, Helinski, has Matti Pellonpaa, who picks up three drunks, Kari Vaananen, Sakari Kuosmahen, and Tomi Salnela, and tells them a sad story.
For the most part, NIGHT ON EARTH is a very funny comedy. The cities of Los Angeles, New York, and Rome are great. Unfortunately, the cities of Paris and Helinski are rather boring. Thankfully, the funny cities make up for the two boring ones making this film definitely worth seeing. On a scale of zero to five, I give this film a four. It would have gotten a five, if it hadn't been for Paris and Helinski. If this film was trying to be a drama, I guess Paris and Helinski would have fit in to the film, but then the rest would not fit. In my area at least, the film was advertised as a comedy, and I really don't see how Paris and Helinski fit into a comedy, unless they are some really black segments that I didn't get. Anyway, I highly suggest that if NIGHT ON EARTH comes to a theater in your general area, and you like comedies, that this film is worth full ticket price. NIGHT ON EARTH is rated R for explicit language and adult situations.
I think that this film is completely original; at least I can't remember any others like this one. I also think that it was a great idea. I think that all the actors/actresses were well picked, except for the blind girl, Beatrice Dalle, who was in the Paris segment. The rest of them do a great job. Even though I didn't like the Paris segment, I think that Isaach de Bankole did the best job in this film. Winona Ryder had an interesting role as the tomboy taxi driver.
Even though you didn't know any of the people's history when each segment started, the characters were well enough written, for the most part, that you became interested in them, and for some, like Armin Mueller-Stahl's character, I found myself wanting to see some more of their adventures. Unfortunately, others, like Kari Vaananen, Sakari Kuosmahen, Tomi Salnela, Matti Pellonpaa, Isaach de Bankole, and Beatrice Dalle's characters I found to be so dry, boring, and sometimes self centered (especially Dalle's) that I didn't care at all about them. The drunks I especially hated, I really can't say why, but for some reason I really disliked them (the cab driver too!). Oh well, it was still a good film.
Ken J. blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews