20140121: Comedy Review--Overnight

Overnight

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 95 minutes, indie, romance, comedy.  Spoken word is in English.
2. IMDB: 5.1/10.0 from 346 audience ratings. Estimated budget 2.85 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet,' and 36% liked it from 73 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 98,732 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Valerie Breiman.
6. Starring: Rachel Blanchard as Jenny, James D'Arcy as Tom, Gbenga Akinnagbe as TMJ, Anthony LePaglia as Tully, Maz Jobrani as Amir, Mousa Kraish as Mohammed, Christina Chang as Lisa, Claudia Christian as Sandy, Kevin Rahm as Chip, Josh Braaten as Derek.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Most of the activity of the film is on a red eye flight direct from Los Angeles to New York City on Valentine's Day.  Tully, the pilot, has anger management issues.  Many of the passengers have problems finding successful romantic relationships.


2. Jenny and Chip have a dinner before she flies back to New York.  He gives her some expensive earrings, though her ears are not pierced.  She tells him that she has decided to move to Los Angeles to be with him.  Unfortunately, he has a second string girl friend and does not want Jenny to move.  They break up.  No surprises there.


3. Tom, a theoretical physics professor, gets hooked into accepting a ride to LAX with his ex, who breaks up with him again, for not kissing her on the lips.  Tom and Jenny bump into each other at on of the gift shops.


4. TMJ (a rapper) is going to NYC without his entourage.  While he is walking to his gate, rap music plays, in which the singer shows his sense of entitlement--to murder whomever he wishes.  This was a good place to stop watching the film.  Hate speak usually does not bode well for a film.  Amir and Mohammed are both 'randomly' chosen for a more thorough inspection before boarding.


5. On the plane, the flight attendants Sandy and Lisa immediately classify Jenny as a high maintenance bitch.  Great: more hate speech.  Amir and Mohammed are immediately pigeon-holed as terrorists.  TMJ immediately shies away from Tom because he's white, while Tom is not positively impressed with TMJ's "I'm the most garish pimp here" clothing.  The male flight attendant has trouble getting TMJ to get off his cell phone during take-off.  After learning that TMJ was on board, Sandy and Lisa sing part of one of his songs which was beyond gross.


6. Tom tries to enable a seat switch between Jenny (in coach) and TMJ, so that TMJ can appear non-elitist to his girl friend.  TMJ objects to sitting next to the terrorists, but Tom talks him into it.  Tom and Jenny try to get to know each other at some length.


7. Tully and his wife have an off and on telephone fight during most of the flight. In between those heated exchanges, Tully and his co-pilot discuss the merits of Christianity.  Tully is an atheist, while Derek is an evangelical.


8. Amir turns out to be allergic to TMJ's dog.  Mohammed tries to talk TMJ into putting the dog back in its carrier.  The dog makes a break for it.


9. Will any of these earnest attempts at relationships work out?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Another failed, low-budget, cliche-ridden, feel-bad, romantic comedy.
2. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Competent but nothing special.


2. Sound: 5/10 No particular problems on sound qualities.  The choice of the incidental music should have been considerably better.


3. Acting: 2/10 Rachel Blanchard, Christina Chang, Claudia Christian, Josh Braaten, and Gbenga Akinnagbe were considerably more irritating than interesting.  Anthony LePaglia and James D'Arcy were better than competent, but could not make up for the others.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 The singing filled with hate-speak did not help, nor did the touchy-feely conversations, nor did the ugly yapping dog loose on a plane.  I am not looking forward to other efforts by Valerie Breiman.  Belly laughs? Zero.  Smiles?  Zero.  Anything in between?  No.  The endless weepy confessions by men were neither illustrative nor interesting.