Overnight film review

certificate_15

OVERNIGHT

A classic tale of the Hollywood dream shattered into a million pieces, Overnight is the kind of film that all aspiring moviemakers should be forced to watch. With greed, ego and hot air as its central themes, Tony Montana's compulsive documentary acts as the ultimate deterrent for anyone who sees Hollywood as a potential golden goose.

Montana's film - a labour of love which took seven years to complete - begins in 1997 in a seedy bar in LA where an overconfident bartender named Troy Duffy has big plans. Along with his buddies (who attempt to form a latter day Rat Pack under the less-than-convincing guise of the Boondock Saints), Duffy wants to rule the world - or at least Tinseltown. And sure enough, within months Duffy has secured himself a deal with a producer by the name of Harvey Weinstein.

Nothing too extraordinary so far, until the details of the deal become apparent: Weinstein agrees to buy Duffy the bar, give him an office and fund his upcoming action film. The story itself becomes news as papers pick up on the tale of the barkeep who hit the big time. But this is really only beginning, as the gigantic ego that is one Troy Duffy lets success go to every part of his body

A chain-smoking, fast-talking New Englander, Duffy soon believes that he is Hollywood's new Messiah, and promptly begins to antagonize everyone he comes into contact with. A boorish, brutal individual, Duffy is also chronically naïve and a rather pathetic figure who begins making the biggest film the world has ever seen and ends up with a straight-to-video release. His cohorts, including members of his family, are either too stoned or too weak to protest as he railroads them - unpaid - into decisions that serve only to promote the cult of Troy.

Fans of films about Hollywood should make a beeline to Overnight, especially as events take a bizarre turn when Duffy decides to launch his gang as the world's greatest rock band with hilariously unsuccessful results. In a town famous for its hype, he takes it to a new level, and the embarrassment factor of this self-deluded creature is enormous throughout.

Despite becoming the town's laughing stock, Duffy has recently announced plans to make a sequel to The Boondock Saints, so it is still to be seen whether he will have the last laugh. Certainly, if the tone of the documentary - originally conceived by his friends - is anything to go by, he will have a hard time making a comeback.

Paul Hurley