Nightwatch Poster

Nightwatch (1997)

Drama | Thriller 
Rayting:   6.2/10 18.9K votes
Country: USA
Language: English
Release date: 12 November 1998

A law student, who takes a job as a night watchman at a morgue, begins to discover clues that implicate him as the suspect of a series of murders.

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scody1 14 December 1998

Seeing this movie, I came away convinced that three teams of writers/editors/directors/composers/actors worked on this film. The first team believed NIGHTWATCH was supposed to be a grim, dark thriller -- a wrenching journey into the human abyss, a la SE7EN. The second team believed it was supposed to be a self-conscious, tongue-in-cheek take-off of the thriller-horror genre, a la SCREAM. And the third team believed it was supposed to be a cutting-edge, hipper-than-thou dark tragi-comedy, a la TRAINSPOTTING with corpses instead of heroin. Once the teams were assembled, they were all randomly assigned the scenes for which they were responsible, and then not allowed to communicate with each other.

The result: NIGHTWATCH -- at turns creepy, grisly, intentionally hilarious, Unintentionally hilarious, ridiculous, insulting and downright embarrassing. Good scenes alternate with dreadful scenes; great bits of dialogue intermingle with cringe-inducing lines that even the actors look ashamed to utter; fantastic visual motifs are undermined by cheap schlock. The only scenes in which I covered my eyes were the ones in which I was mortified for the actors themselves (the dinner scene with the prostitute comes -- ahem -- to mind). The scary "jump" scenes, on the other hand, are telegraphed so clumsily that you can set your watch by them. And the final, obligatory "everyone meets in the parking lot after being stiched up by the paramedics" scene contains one gaping logical flaw: wouldn't the guy who has just sawed his own thumb off (!!!) to free himself from handcuffs be rushed to the nearest emergency room to have emergency surgery to re-attach his thumb, rather than sitting around in a bandage, chatting?

Most damning is the fact that it's a good 50/50 bet that you'll figure out who the real killer is during the opening credits (which themselves happen to be overly-long, self-conssciously stylized, and downright irritating). As a result, the red herring character may as well be wandering around the film with a sandwich board on his body, declaring RED HERRING.

No one's character is explored in depth; their motivations are paper thin, when they are explained at all. That leaves the actors with very little to work with. McGregor just looks baffled most of the time, tho' he does invoke the heebie-jeebies of working in the morgue really well. Nick Nolte (who seems to be melting, facially-wise) doesn't "sell" his character from the outset -- as a result, you know intuitively that things are not what they seem. Josh Brolin chews the scenery as the inexplicably unhinged best friend. And Patricia Arquette -- let's be blunt -- can't act. I don't care how minimal the role is. She just can't act.

Finally, sad to say, the movie is so choppy, ugly and weirdly paced that the sight of Ewan McGregor butt-nekkid in the bathtub isn't even erotic (for those of us who find that sort of thing thrilling).

But those plastic-encased trees and the moths in the light fixtures are good 'n' creepy, though!

meebly 31 January 1999

Fmovies: Cliche, misogynistic, very bloody -- only for hardened fans of the psycho-thriller. Ewan McGregor turns in his first disappointing performance, and Nolte seems more of a zombie than the corpses (this may have been a stylistic touch, but I'm more apt to believe his heart just wasn't in the role).

atinder 6 June 2010

Ewan McGregor plays a law student who takes a job as a night watchman at a morgue. He begins to discover clues that implicate him as the suspect of a serial of murders.

The setting in this movie was really perfect, i really liked it , it had great atmosphere from start to end and worked really well with the the creepy scenes, they also added some humour into this movie, which i really liked.

The deaths were not gory or bloody as this is more of a drama then your normal slasher movies, (it nothing like Scream or Friday 13th movies at all).

The acting from the whole cast was outstanding, A really good movie

8 out of 10

rant79 23 January 2000

Nightwatch fmovies. BRILLIANT, CHILLING, & INTRIGUING!

It is always a pleasure to watch Ewan McGregor work, as he fully immerses himself into his roles-truly becoming the character he plays. I can honestly say this is the first film in a LONG time that, well it scared the crap out of me. Amazingly written, cast, and filmed, I felt it achieved an ingenious atmosphere similar to that in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which is imperative to the effect of a good suspense/thriller/horror film. One of my definite favourites, in case you couldn't tell =).

hu675 2 March 2009

College student Martin Bells (Ewan McGregor) is hopefully to make some money for himself by taking a job at the old city morgue. Which Martin thinks it's easy money until his graveyard shift turned into something else. A mysterious serial killer is been murdering unsuspected prostitutes but before he murders them... he makes them play dead. Now this murderer is been stalking Martin on his night shifts by playing sick mind games with the dead corpses.

Directed by Ole Bornedal made an predictable but fairly intriguing suspense-thriller. Which Bornedal remade his own film "Nattevagten" for Dimension Films. McGregor's American accent comes and goes but he is surrounded by a sharp supporting cast like Patricia Arquette as his worried girlfriend, Josh Brolin as Martin's daredevil buddy, Brad Dourif as a doctor and Nick Notle as a police detective. "Nightwatch" was set to release in the fall of 1996 but released instead limited in the spring of 1998. Which the film critics were not kind to it, since the identity of the villain was too easy to guess but the movie is oddly irresistible thanks to some suspense, Bornedal's stylish creepy mood and some light touches of humour. The look on McGregor's face, when his buddy scares him nearly to death in the morgue is priceless. Despite all it's flaws, this is worth a look. Written by the director and Oscar-Winner Steven Soderbergh (The Ocean Trilogy, Erin Brockovich, Solaris "2002"). John C. Reilly appears uncredited. Super 35. (*** 1/2 out of *****).

PMR-4 21 June 1999

Any great expectations you may have for this film begin to fade after 20 minutes. The director succeeds in creating a fine eerie atmosphere with shots that linger just long enough to make you expect something to happen, and does nothing with it. The film soon throws away any attempt at a decent plot and unravels under it's own pseudo intellectualism. Ewan McGregor smirks so much (probably at his attempt at an american accent, Sean Connery anyone?) you think he's just walked off the set of Trainspotting with a stash of drugs. Nick Nolte hams his way through every scene looking like a part time drag queen and Josh Brolin seems to be lost in his characters confusing mood swings. As for the women in the film, they seem to lack any substance at all and are very one dimensional. The film fails in sustaining any interest, it skips over all of it's gaping plot holes and has an ending which is very unfulfilling.

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