Nightwatch (1998)

reviewed by
Matt Prigge


NIGHTWATCH (1998)
A Film Review by Ted Prigge
Copyright 1999 Ted Prigge

Director: Ole Bornedal Writers: Ole Bornedal and Steven Soderbergh Starring: Ewan McGregor, Nick Nolte, Josh Brolin, Patricia Arquette, Alix Koromzay, Lauren Graham, Brad Douriff, John C. Reilly, Charles Fleischer, Lonny Chapman

I recently read the book "I Fellini" where the great Italian director was quoted as saying (and I'm paraphrasing) that once he finished a film and it was in theaters that he always thought about stuff he should have inserted before but never got a chance to, but how he'd never actually go back to rework his films because once a film is finished the first time, it's finished forever, and new projects should be tackled instead. Reason Two should be the Danish Georges Cluzot film, "The Vanishing": after being highly acclaimed by critics worldwide as a brilliant chiller of a film (I've never seen it), he was called by Hollywood to remake it himself, and the result was not only a box office dud, but a film that was virtually devoured by critics as a pretty shitty little flick that totally ignored the power the original had.

Reason Three, then, should be "Nightwatch." Also a Danish film, "Nightwatch" has been recrafted by its director, Ole Bordenal, so that it could be the most recent in the long line of Teen Horror Movies, albeit a Teen Horror Movie starring young adults like hot Scot actor Ewan McGregor, Patricia Arquette, and Josh Brolin (oh, and Nick Nolte too). If the previous reason should be any note to you, take into consideration the fact that this film was original slated for release in November of 1996, and lay in Movie Limbo until, oh, April of 1998, when it was finally released to the titanic gross of about two million dollars before shutting down and being shipped to video stores for rental. How I know this should be no surprise to anyone who knows me: I was once a ginormous Ewan McGregor fan, as well as a "Scream" fan, and the trailers for this film, at the time, were unbelievably cool. Looking back at the same trailer, it still looks cool, because it's not another subconcious "Scream" film, but rather an actual serious thriller, with shots and scenes where you actually hold your breath in fear, and are stuck in the middle of a mystery. With lots of suspects. And working the nightshift in a morgue of all places. At least that's what I gathered from the trailers.

Renting it not too long ago with a free coupon, after thinking "What the hell?" to myself, I discovered the oft-fated truth that the actual movie seldomly lives up to the trailer or the hype (or lack thereof, in this case). "Nightwatch" begins not half-bad, actually. The credit sequence is weird and complicated. Lots of repeated shots of an interview on the TV in connection with a murder and the investigating Inspector Cray (Nolte), juxtaposed with scenes of a party between friends for Martin Bells (McGregor), our humble protagonist, given by his girlfriend (Arquette) and their two closest friends (Brolin and Lauren Graham). It's all terribly corny, but it sets up a nice tone that should have preceded, and it gets us thinking about who will be the notorious killer amongst them.

We learn about Martin. He's a law student, a bit dull, and has just gotten a job working the night shift at the local morgue. The retiring nightshift watchman (Lonny Chapman) shows him the ropes of the job, which includes turning a key box in every single room every hour to make sure that he's doing his duties, and about whom to call in case of emergencies, and to set up a little anecdote about an infamous murder that happened years ago involving one of the nightwatchmen, a corpse, and a bit of raving libido. This is the best scene in the film, due mostly in part to Chapman, whose worldweariness is immensely appealing and totally fascinating.

Everything goes swell for Martin, then the local serial murdering pops up again, and Martin becomes suspect number one in Cray's investigating. Soon the film is trying to make everyone a candidate for suspectism, including Brolin's daredevil best friend (bringing about a mindboggingly stupid subplot involving a prostitute played by Alix Koromzay), the off-kilter Deputy Doc (Brad Douriff), even perhaps Arquette. Trouble is what it all comes down to is the viewer figuring out who the killer is in the first ten minutes, then thinking it's another character, and then coming back to their first intuition: an annoying trend in mysteries these days, often used when the screenwriter is suffering from laziness. It doesn't really help that the style and direction by Bordenal isn't exactly chilling. There are several scenes of Martin walking down long, brightly lit, yet eerie hallways to discover what's on the other side, and these are geniuinely nail-biting, but most of the time, there's no real tension, and most of the scary shots/scenes were fragments in the trailer, a piece of film that did work as being actually scary (at least in the hype-kind-of-way).

It also doesn't help that the characters are disturbingly boring and one-dimensional, and the acting, for the most part, is piss-poor (you heard me). McGregor invests no personality whatsoever in Martin, and he comes off as merely Ewan in auto-pilot and with an fake accent. Brolin is as annoying as he's ever been. And Arquette is the worst: I'm not a big fan of hers (I liked her a lot in "True Romance," though), and if anyone ever wanted to challenge me on that notion, I can now cheerfully point to her cliched and eyes-rolling performance in this film as proof that, yes, she can really blow as an actress (Exhibit Two is her embarrassingly overrated performance in "Lost Highway"). Only Nick Nolte comes off as good. Saddled with an otherwise thankless role, he turns Inspector Cray into the one thing in this film that really works: he's mysterious yet trusting, ominous yet approachable. He's also a marvel to watch, and if it ain't the best performance in a shitty movie I've seen all year, then I've been forgetting something crucial here.

There are, as with most bad films, things I did like about this film. I liked the way that the killer is revealed: when it (I use "it" in lieu of a gender, for obvious reasons) is revealed, it could be in the location for other reasons. A real nice touch. I also liked the way the film handled the key turning in the actual morgue part of the morgue: it's chilling in a simplisitc, human way. And for McGregor fans, there's a nice little homage to "Shallow Grave." But that's really about it. I personally like my horror films with creepiness, and not exactly intelligence. I can sometimes dismiss plot holes, lack of characterization, and other such sins if there's great storytelling there. Case in point, Dario Argento's "Suspiria," which would have been the world's stupidest film if it hadn't been so marvelously constructed. But when there's noting remotely creepy or engaging about the way a film is construced, all I can then turn to is the story and characters. And when there's nothing there either, well then you'll have to excuse me as a roll my eyes a bit.

MY RATING (out of 4): **

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