Wednesday, March 30, 2011

One Long Night (2007)

Movie: 3/5
Video: 2.5/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 0/5
Overall: 2.5/5

One Long Night...Felt Kinda Long For 90 Minutes.

One Long Night...a title I saw for $5 while searching online at Target to get some free shipping on some Blu-ray titles I was looking to buy, like The Howling Trilogy and Alien 2: On Earth. I picked this little unknown title up to get past my $50 point because I was almost $2 under $50. The film is one of Vivendi Visuals' earlier releases to the format and if you've read the reviews for those other titles before they picked up Dragon Dynasty and The Weinstein Company titles, then you'll know what you're getting yourself into.

The film starts out with Richard who is getting married into a wealthy family. His behavior is the common "A-hole" type as he degrades his valet who is an immigrant. Richard is then called by his boss, at least I think it's his boss who is played by Ed Begley Jr, to go on a trip to Mexico City to report on his company's international finances. Richard reluctantly agrees and heads down where he then is met by Pancho the international head of the company. Pancho takes Richard out for a drink and leaves him stranded out in the middle of Mexico City where Richard ends up going up a certain creek without a paddle and he has to survive for the night. His fight for survival pits him up against gangsters, transsexuals, and corrupt cops. And it will be a night Richard will never forget.

I give the film a 3/5. It does drag at times and the film is not executed evenly. There is a twist at the end and when we get to it; it comes and then quickly goes as if to say; "Oh, we're this close to 90 minutes let's just quickly address this and then move on to the ending credits". In the drama of it all, the humor is somewhat entertaining as we see a Latino-American struggling to make it in a foreign land.

The video is problematic and I don't know what this movie was filmed on, possibly 16mm, I'm not sure. But it's not very detailed. And I know this complaint is probably meant to be artistic, but it's really dark, even in daylight scenes of the film. For me, the video presentation is what counts the most, and this is not a good video presentation. 2.5/5.

The audio is English/Spanish Bilingual 5.1 Dolby Digital with burned in Yellow English subtitles for all of the Spanish dialog. I give it a 4/5. There are no extras, not even a pop up menu, or scene selection. 0/5. And with this averaged up, it rounds up to a dismal 2.5/5. I would recommend this release, but only if you can get it for $5 like I did. It's a nice little indie film that got out into society, which is rare because lots of indie films don't get anywhere.

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