Emile Hirsch, Jeremy Piven, Paz Vega, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers join forces for gangster / art heist thriller American Night. Directed by Alessio Della Valle, American Night presents a disjointed story that sees an art dealer, John (Rhys-Meyers), become entangled with Michael Rubino (Hirsch), the newly ascended head of a mob contingent. After one of Michael’s priceless paintings is stolen, John appears to be the most likely candidate for the crime and a tangled web of deceit and corruption swings into motion.
The talent on the roster for American Night far exceeds the subject material that they are working with. There are far too many characters stuffed into not much story, and many of the excellent cast are wasted. Emile Hirsch continually switches from long monologues musing about art, to cartoonish villain, the two sides of his character’s psyche never allowed to join together and become whole. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers flirts his way through; Paz Vega’s character appears to be entirely different from scene-to-scene. Piven could easily be lost, his only contribution being some martial arts mantras and moves. It really is a massive shame as a cast this eclectic will certainly bring in a wide audience; there’s nothing there for them to grasp onto when they arrive.
Split into three parts, American Night might have a plethora of well-known faces, with Michael Madsen and even singer Anastasia making fleeting appearances, but it doesn’t make a whole heap of sense. The three separate sections are deliberate, used to throw the viewer off of the scent, jumbling up the narrative to befuddling heights. This non-linear narrative structure isn’t unique, but non-linear shouldn’t mean inaccessible. Events and characters zig and zag all over and it isn’t until the final third that character connections, intentions, and timelines all slot into place. Were the breadcrumbs easy to ingest during the earlier segments then maybe this structural device would work. With so little to go on everything becomes bewildering and only a few will be able to stay engaged all the way through to the moment that the penny begins to drop.
The saving grace of American Night is that it looks good. The cinematography has that glossy John Wick aesthetic that imbues the movie world with a sense of cool. Some of the shots are gorgeous, something that one might expect given the topic of the film is art. One shot in particular, a monotone woodland image within an art gallery, is a standout.
At two hours long American Night is far longer than it needs to be. Films within this sub-genre work best when they’re kept short and to the point. In American Night there are definitely a few characters and subplots that could be jettisoned to get it down to a more consumer friendly sub-hundred minutes. A wasted opportunity, American Night could have become the new twisty crime caper ensemble along the lines of Smokin’ Aces and Lucky Number Slevin, but holds itself back with its unnecessarily confused narrative and excessive character numbers.
American Night
Summary
A squandered cast and an overly confusing narrative structure hamper American Night’s chances at success.
American Night will be available on Digital Download from 7th February.
