Starring: Ewan McGregor, Nick Nolte, Patricia Arquette, Josh Brolin, Lauren Graham Directed By: Ole Bornedal Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC Label: Dimension Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: November 14, 2000 Running Time: 99 minutes Theatrical Release Date: April 17, 1998
Amazon.com: Ole Bornedal's thriller about a young law student who takes a job as a night watchman in a creepy morgue is long on style but comes up a little short on quality of storytelling. Bornedal sets things up in high style as Martin Bells (Ewan McGregor doing an American accent) makes his rounds in the middle of the night, with only corpses and his own paranoia for company. When bodies start coming in, the prostitute victims of a grisly serial killer, the imposing detective on the case (a hulking Nick Nolte) begins to suspect that Bells is the killer, as all clues start pointing to him. Coscripted by Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight) and adapted from Bornedal's 1994 Danish thriller, Nightwatch forsakes out-and-out thrills for a more moody approach with flickering lights, menacing shadows, and echoing footsteps down long hallways. If only there were a little more energy before the highly effective denouement, which does get scares, even after the killer is revealed. Still, McGregor is supported by a stronger than average cast: in addition to Nolte, Josh Brolin does an amusing turn as McGregor's out-of-control best friend, Patricia Arquette fares well in the standard girlfriend role, and the always creepy Brad Dourif makes the most of a sinister and funny bit part as the on-call doctor. You won't jump out of your seat, but by the end of Nightwatch you will find yourself remarkably tense. --Mark Englehart
Product Description: No Description Available. Genre: Feature Film-Drama Rating: R Release Date: 5-AUG-2003 Media Type: DVD
New category: immature movies for immature viewers... Everybody in this piece of trash acts like he or she is in a totally different movie or acting class, maybe, always a bad sign. Nolte looks like they painted the wig on him, McGregor sounds like he woke up with a different accent each day.
Seek ye elsewhere, this is badddddddddddddddddd!
The Scariest Movie You'll Ever See That's Realistic-Like My boyfriend works at a mall as a security guard at night all by himself. The manniquins scare him enough as it is. And the hallways echo strange and eerie noises. He prays that none will come to life.
You may think twice before taking that security guard position late at night all by yourself. But at the morgue? A normal person would die of fright for sure! Not only is there the quiet and dark to face along with corpses, but will one wake up? And if that's not enough, there's also a serial killer on the on the loose. See if Ewan McGregor survives the late shift or is just spooking himself. And see and feel exactly what it's like for no one to hear your scream but you.
sic horror flick Good movie for any scary movie/thriller lover. The Burl Ives music really sticks with you. Great cast, interesting plot.
Sometimes horror is more than gore What's really scary about this film is the brutal betrayal of its bumbling yet innocent main character, by somebody who does it "just because". Nick Nolte's speach wherein he explains that "this" killer is frightening because he really has no reason for what he does. And that fact leaves none of us safe, as Ewan and Patricia found out.
If you don't get that sometimes horror is more than gore watch what's happening in Iraq right now. If you're not horrified, you're not paying attention.
Mediocre thriller that takes awhile to gain momentum In Nightwatch, Ewan McGregor plays Martin, a law student who takes a job as a nightwatchman in the medical examiner's office. He works from 8pm-4am and his only real task besides sitting behind a desk is to walk through the building once every hour and turn a series of keys to ensure that the's been there the whole time. This includes one particularly spooky walk through the morgue. Still Martin thinks the job will be easy money and a give him a chance to study.
What he doesn't factor in is that there's a killer on the loose who has been murdering young prostitutes and cutting out their eyes. When their bodies start to turn up and he becomes a suspect, Martin has to try to find the killer himself and clear his name.
The first 30 to 45 minutes of this movie move pretty slowly and it takes awhile for the plot to take shape. At first I wasn't sure if the movie was about the serial killer, about Martin, or about the morgue since all of them seemed important but none of them really stood out. It seems like the point of the beginning of the movie was to set up an aura of creepiness by showing images of the morgue and the dark exterior of the building without showing any scary moments or blood and gore.
In fact, the best part of the whole movie is the last 20 minutes, though it took a lot of effort to get there. I wanted to turn this movie off several times because there was just too much going on without enough focus. I'd have expected a bit more with the names they have in the cast like McGregor, Nick Nolte, and Patricia Arquette. In the end, the movie moves too fast to wrap up all the plot elements that were left open, and this detracts too much from the story. I'd rent this or watch it on tv, but it's definitely not a good buy in my opinion.
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