Post by StevePulaski on Aug 7, 2017 16:05:52 GMT -5
All Nighter (2017)
Directed by: Gavin Wiesen
Directed by: Gavin Wiesen
Emile Hirsch and J. K. Simmons.
Rating: ★★½
All Nighter begins on a supremely awkward note, as it drops in on a dinner between the millennial couple of Martin (Emile Hirsch) and Ginnie (Two Night Stand's Analeigh Tipton) where, for the first time, Martin meets Ginnie's father (J. K. Simmons). The dinner is marred by awkward moments and snide remarks from Ginnie's father, who completely misses Martin's niceness while being hung up on his dead-end career of being a banjo player for a third-rate, revisionist bluegrass band. When trying to order a bottle of expensive red wine, Ginnie's father realizes a snag in his seemingly innocuous gesture. "I'm allergic to sulfites," Martin informs him. "Sulfites," Simmons' character replies with the skepticism in his deep voice that we've come to expect from him. "Are you going to have a beer or are you allergic to hops too?," he quips.
Months after that uncomfortable outing that ended with Martin and Ginnie alone, him promising her that he'd sit through another lousy dinner if it meant she got to see her father more often, the two have broken up with one another. Martin lives with his pot-smoking roommate and is still emotionally rattled enough that he can't focus on music, and he hasn't had any contact with Ginnie in months. One day, her father arrives at his doorstep, quietly panicked because he cannot get a hold of his daughter. He refuses to call her mother (his ex-wife), for fear of worrying her, and her voicemail is filled, presumably of his messages.
Because his job revolves around traversing the globe on such an erratic schedule, Ginnie's father doesn't have the connection with his daughter his wife has. Desperate and out of options, the two work off of Martin's foggy, masturbation and weed-hazed memory to try and track down Ginnie's friends, employers, and favorite locations in hopes of finding the only constant her father really has in life.
For having a premise that could inspire some of the outright lamest, most miserable attempts at situational humor, All Nighter is surprisingly committed to character and the formation of a bond between those characters. Of course, predictably, the film features a good many scenes of Martin and her ex's father breaking and entering, getting on the wrong side of nightclub regulars, and operating on different playing fields. But with that also comes several scenes of appropriate, marginally compelling male bonding that can thrive thanks to the chemistry brought on by two recognizable actors, one an Oscar-winning veteran, the other, a veteran of contemporary comedy and off-kilter roles.
I've long said that between his roles in The Girl Next Door, Taking Woodstock, and Into the Wild, Emile Hirsch is an under-appreciated soul. Although I'd argue that populating his filmography with roles like his in All Nighter is somewhat of a waste of his talents, at this point, if that's what the 32-year-old's calling is, I'd be content with it if the quality doesn't dip below that of this particular film. Moreover, with Whiplash in the rear-view and Simmons' name in the forefront of people's minds now more than ever, it's probably wise for Simmons to steer clear of films like All Nighter, despite his poise being right for the role. Nonetheless, he's effective, like Hirsch, in the basic qualifications of his character, operating in a screenplay that, even with limitations, is tolerable than most fare of this class.
All Nighter has a modest commentary about the way we treat women - or people in general- in our lives too, and how we might expect them to be available or at our beckoning call when we might not provide them with that same privilege. The film is largely about a father who never seemed to think twice about his daughter's feelings during his prolific lack of availability, but now that his daughter is nowhere to be found, off doing her own thing, it's a 911-caliber crisis. Screenwriter Seth W. Owen doesn't lose sight of this fact by the end, and perhaps that explains why even the most ribald situations in All Nighter don't even feel like overblown or incredulous circumstances.
There's fun to be had here in a pleasantly unassuming manner. Simmons and Hirsch provide the film with solid chemistry, and do their best to keep the film theirs even when horrifically unfunny characters like Ginnie's sort-of-friend Gary (Taran Killam) shows up and then shows up again. See through its rather simplistic comic premise for a tad more than what it is and All Nighter becomes an average comedy with an asterisk next to its existence in to justify its existence as a movie.
Starring: J. K. Simmons, Emile Hirsch, Taran Killam, and Analeigh Tipton. Directed by: Gavin Wiesen.