Nightwatch Poster

Nightwatch (1994)

Thriller  
Rayting:   7.3/10 15.2K votes
Country: Denmark
Language: Danish | Swedish
Release date: 23 February 1995

A law student starts working as nightwatchman at Department of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen. His mad friend gets him on a game of dare that escalates. As a serial killer's victims start piling up at work, he becomes a suspect.

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User Reviews

mamiwata 21 May 2009

The lavish praise for this movie suggests that it was a very important film for its time and place. However, I find that Nattevagten/ Nightwatch isn't a particularly tense thriller.

The atmosphere of the morgue is interesting, and there are some suspenseful moments. But the narrative is lacking. There aren't enough suspects to go around. For a good whodunit, there need to be many viable suspects. I wanted to keep guessing, but I couldn't. In addition, a lot of the drama is created by people bumbling around making bad choices instead of getting caught in an expertly woven net.

The characters don't have much motivation for the things they do. An hour or so in, I didn't care what happened to them. The movie makes several joking references to clichés in Hollywood cinema, but doesn't seem that interested in breaking them.

dbdumonteil 31 January 2004

Fmovies: I guess I will be the only one to put disparagement on this beloved work which anybody on the site praises to the skies.Frankly I do not like it ,not at all.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS:the screenplay is not that much strong,and the suspense is not really here.The first hour is boring and what remains is a spate of clichés:best/worst example:the killer,leaving "clues" on the dead body ,I've seen it (and read it) so many times that it leaves me amazed :how can a writer ,fifty years or so after Agatha Christie and co,still think of a such hackneyed idea?Giving the killer's identity or the key to the mystery half an hour or more before the ending can be rewarding (such was the case in "vertigo" (1958)),but here ,it destroys any fear:who could reasonably think that the hero -and his girl-could be really in jeopardy after that?Only a whodunit could sustain the interest till the very end.

But there's something more annoying:one of the characters is unbearable,the notorious Jens:the scene in the restaurant with the prostitute makes me sick:this bourgeois student really demeans this girl thanks to the power of his dough.Seeing him humiliate this human being while taking out his banknotes is one of the most despicable scenes I've seen in years ;and that does not make the "hero"-who's watching- nicer either.Besides guess who will be sacrificed when the others survive?Another gratuitous scene which comes at the most awkward moment involves Jens and his priest girlfriend in the church .It's really nauseating.That makes the very last scene even more disgusting.And you know ,I 'm far from being holier-than-thou.

I know a lot of people will disagree... but once more,there's no accounting for taste.

cusca 20 May 2006

Somebody wrote here: '(Most) US reviewers find this mediocre or 'not interesting' and suggest we should see the American remake. European reviewers all like it! I like it too' Oh well, I'm European... so what? I love GOOD cinema of any kind but sadly I got really disappointed with this over-rated and feeble thriller. The story is so obvious and cliché-ridden as any Hollywood mainstream movie of this type and in the last 30 minutes it's like an idiot-plot compendium. It begins promising enough, there are a couple of superb scary scenes in the first half, tons of creepy atmosphere along the way (great locations and camera-work) and some decent performances. But that's all. OK, if the point with this movie was character development it fails with this, too. There's not a single complex or even sympathetic character. And that slight social commentary is uninteresting because it doesn't match with the thriller elements at all.

I haven't seen the American remake and I don't feel like to do it after seeing this one.

Infofreak 20 August 2002

Nightwatch fmovies. 'Nightwatch' is genuinely creepy Danish thriller full of suspense and interesting uncliched characters. Writer/director Ole Bornedal really knows how to hook a viewer by creating a likeable hero, then throwing him in the deep end. We really feel for Martin (Nikolaj Coster-Wadeu) and want to somehow see him get out of the dangerous mess he unexpectedly finds himself in! This movie has plenty of twists without getting gimmicky, and is helped enormously by the first rate cast of unknown (to an English language audience) actors, all of whom are well cast and convincing. One of the oddest things about this movie is that the American remake was not only inferior, but actually directed by Bornedal himself. American remakes of European movies are almost always poor, but this is one of the few examples of the same director being responsible for both. (One other springs to mind - George Sluizer's brilliant 'Spoorloos', remade by himself as the hugely disappointing 'The Vanishing'). Maybe this says a lot about Hollywood and the behind the scenes compromises movie audiences are rarely privy to. Anyway, steer clear of the crappy remake, and try to see this the superb original. Along with Amenabar's similarly taut and claustrophobic 'Tesis' it is one of the most effective and entertaining thrillers of the last decade.

Boba_Fett1138 24 September 2012

Even though this is not a perfect movie, it still does nothing really wrong either and this movie is basically being a great example of how to do a great and effective, more classic type, of thriller.

The movie combines many different genre elements and it keeps throwing you around. Is it going to be a horror? Is it going to be psychological thriller? Is it going to be a thriller involving a serial killer? Every time you think you have the movie all figured out it does something new and surprising. So really, it's best to simply watch this movie, without knowing what it truly is going to be all about.

And the good news about the movie as well is that it handles all of its many different themes effectively. When the movie is supposed to be horror like it's being really horror like with its atmosphere and buildup and when the movie is supposed to be more thriller like it's really being suspenseful and mysterious. What I also liked was that the movie was having some clear Giallo genre movie elements in it but then again, every modern horror/thriller involving a killer is being in one way or another derivative of the classic Italian Giallo genre.

It really was foremost the atmosphere of the whole movie that kept it going and suspenseful and interesting. The story itself, when you really start to dissect it is being quite standard for its genre. Yet the movie still manages to surprise you, due to the way it handles certain scenes and its typical genre ingredients, such as the look and feeling it has to it.

The movie also truly benefits from it that it has some good and likable characters in it. No cocky kids, or persons who think they know best and are afraid of nothing but instead some real people, with real fears and emotions. Yes, it might be true that the characters feel that way simply just because this is a Danish production, which of course has a different approach and feeling to it than a more standardized and stylized Hollywood production. Or perhaps it's just all due to some great casting and performances by its actors. This actually was being one of Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau's very first movie roles and he now days has a pretty decent acting career, with already also movies such as "Black Hawk Down", "Kingdom of Heaven" and the television series "Game of Thrones" behind his name.

Guess there is still plenty of stuff you could complain about, such as the lack of blood and gore, while there was plenty of opportunity for it, or that the killer gets revealed far before the finale and end of the movie but that doesn't take away anything from the fact that this is simply being a very effective genre movie, that's perfectly watchable, even on repeated viewings.

8/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

The_Void 14 October 2007

Well, I've wanted to see this film for so long that I actually put off watching it when I first got myself a copy for fear that it might disappoint. It is my greatest pleasure, therefore, to state that Nightwatch did not in any way disappoint me! This film is an out and out masterpiece and by far and away the best film I've seen in some time! Nightwatch is an intriguing blend of slow burn horror and murder mystery that manages thrills and surprises throughout. Denmark is not a country that springs to mind when thinking about horror films, but that hasn't stopped director Ole Bornedal from giving the best directors that the genre has to offer a real run for their money! The plot centres on a morgue where a young law student named Martin has just taken a job smoking, drinking, listening to rock musicÂ…and checking up on the corpses at night. It just happens that around the same time there's a maniac going round bumping off prostitutes, and of course the bodies are being taken to the morgue where Martin works, and that's where his troubles start as he finds himself getting caught up in the investigation...

The plot runs rather slowly, but the director ensures that the film is always interesting. Nightwatch is predominantly a horror thriller, but there are also themes of romance and comedy thrown into the mix which help to ensure that the film always feels fresh. Nightwatch is very high quality too, the acting is superb and it's clear that the director values this art form as the attention to detail is stunning and there isn't a shot in the movie that feels wrong or out of place. The characters are the most interesting thing about the film; they're all well defined, and that's a huge positive since the story really relies on that. The way that the director keeps the action mysterious and brooding means that the audience is always expecting something to happen, which ensures that the film is always full of tension. The director throws in a lot of red herrings and leads the audience astray before unleashing a well worked and really quite shocking twist towards the end. Overall, Nightwatch is everything you could want a thriller to be and more. There's not a great deal of films out there that are good as this one – so if you're lucky enough to come across a copy of Nightwatch, make sure you don't pass it up!

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