27 Sep American Night Review

AMERICAN NIGHT

dir. Alessio Della Valle, starring Emile Hirsch, Jonathan Rhys Meyes, and Paz Vega

American Night, a noir thriller set in New York City’s shifty art world, tells the story of an art critic, the ruthless head of a crime organization, and the fight for money, art, power and love. Tasked with delivering a print of Andy Warhol’s famous Pink Marilyn painting, two-bit criminal Shaky delivers the painting to the wrong person, and what unravels is a tale of ambition, greed, opportunism, and supposedly, love.

Della Valle’s decision to tell the story out of order begins as an interesting concept, starting with a scuffle at a diner and cutting away before the audience understands its ramifications or importance to the overall plot. What starts as interesting, however, is revealed to be a technique used as a crutch to try and keep the audience’s attention and smooth over the rough patches. Dodgy storytelling and characters with muddled motivations that are never fully made clear are the glaring negative standouts in this movie, doing little to bolster the efficacy of this low budget effort. While there’s nothing wrong with a low budget film (plenty of movies with small and micro budgets have crafted amazing stories), American Night seems like a story that was possibly a bit too ambitious for the budget it was granted. Regrettably, this leads to jarringly bad visual effects, out of sync ADR, and third rate prosthetics (most notably, a laughably obvious bald cap).

Some of the creative choices used in American Night also manage to detract from any overall appeal. Excessive language and gratuitous nudity for nudity’s sake gives the movie the feel of a first pass at a script written by a college freshman. These elements do little to cover for the weak writing and exposition dumps throughout the film.

Starring Emile Hirsch as gangster Michael Rubino and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as art critic John Kaplan, American Night is a far cry from their previous works. Hirsch, who came to prominence after Into the Wild and Speed Racer, hits his marks, says his lines, and doesn’t make many attempts to emote. Playing the new mob boss hell bent on retrieving a painting he believes is his rightful claim, Hirsch’s lackadaisical performance drags the film down with each scene he’s in. Delivering one bland take after another, Hirsch appears almost uninterested in being in the film, there to collect his paycheck and disappear. Rhys Meyers isn’t much better in his portrayal as shady art critic John Kaplan, but he’s not given much material to work with. Kaplan is the most driven, passionate person in the movie, wanting nothing more than to desperately open his own gallery, which runs him afoul of a number of shady denizens. Rhys Meyers tries his best with what’s on the page, but due in large part to the weak writing, Kaplan comes across as only slightly less one note than the rest of the cast.

Jeremey Piven also graces the screen from time to time as John Kaplan’s screwup of a brother, Vincent. A failed stunt double, Vincent gets caught up in Kaplan’s schemes as Piven, known for his talents at portraying detestable people, attempts to play against type as a man desperately hunting for a second chance at life. Piven injects his usual bit of humor into the role, but it’s not enough to save him from the fates of the script. Michael Madsen, on screen for all of five minutes, has sadly devolved into playing various variations of Michael Madsen on screen. The real shame of the film lies in its portrayal of women. No woman in American Night has any agency or agenda of their own. They’re reduced to secretaries, helpers, or items used for exposition. The only actor worth his salt in this film is Fortunato Cerlino as Shaky, the man tasked with delivering the macguffin to the appropriate place at the beginning of the film. Cerlino’s comedic timing, as well as his affable, everyman nature makes Shaky an endearing character to root for as he scrambles to complete his simple task.

Written and directed by Alessio Della Valle, American Night’s main fault lies in its subpar writing. The story of a newly minted crime boss who’s been forced to downplay his love of art and culture due to the toxic masculinity of his environment is an idea rife with possibilities. Unfortunately, these ideas are hardly touched upon, with Della Valle’s screenplay breezing past them to instead focus on surface level characters with at times laughable dialogue. Della Valle seemed more interested in attempting to make a slick, cool film, but fills his world with unrelatable characters, cliché dialogue, and incomprehensible pacing. This, combined with the bland direction from Della Valle, makes American Night a effort to sit through from start to finish.

Overall, American Night is a complete mess of a film. A subpar attempt a Tarantino-esque style of storytelling falls flat, leaving the viewer with a frustrated idea of what could have been, had the idea germinated in a more talented storyteller. A lack of good story, strongly written characters, or solid directing make the film a 123 minute chore to grind through to reach the end credits. A complete disservice to the neo-noir genre that it portends to be, the glaring omission of the classic noir elements relegates the movie to a simple bottom tier crime flick. The lackluster acting on top of the weak writing, combined with a needlessly complicated story with too many moving parts, makes this one of the worst films of 2021. American Night is in theaters and on VOD October 1st.

Review by Darryl Mansel