'Night Call' Reviews: Film "stands with better efforts due to its relentless high stakes and a believable and sympathetic performance from its lead"

     On January 17, 2025, with a streaming release on January 24th, Magnet Releasing released 'Night Call', which has earned predominantly positive reviews from critics. In the film, "One evening, Mady--a young student by day, locksmith by night--receives an emergency call from Claire to open a lock. But the door the young woman wants to open isn't hers, and the bag she runs away with isn't hers either. It belongs to Yannick, a vicious mobster who blames Mady and will stop at nothing to retrieve his stolen goods. Mady has only one night to prove his innocence and save his neck. What started out as an ordinary night shift turns into a brutal descent into violence. NIGHT CALL is a no-holds-barred crime thriller that ambitiously combines genres, from film noir to action-packed survival." The ensemble cast includes Jonas Bloquet, Thomas Mustin, Romain Duris, Jonathan Feltre, and Natasha Krief. But what did the critics say?

    Shawn Van Horn of Collider says, "Oftentimes, it can feel like if you've seen one action thriller, you've seen them all. The genre often follows the same beats, with the same action set pieces, and the usual results. Night Call, a French-Belgian movie filmed and set in Brussels, has a familiar plot you've come across many times, but thanks to the writing efforts of Michiel Blanchart and Gilles Marchand, with Blanchart also in the directors' chair, Night Calls stands with better efforts due to its relentless high stakes and a believable and sympathetic performance from its lead, Jonathan Feltre. Night Call does nothing new, but it does the standards the right way." Adding, "Deciding that Night Call would happen throughout one night is Blanchart's best choice. The film could have dove deeper into who Mady, Yannick, and a select few other characters are, giving us many more scenes of them outside the plot, but instead of questions being answered, we're dropped into the middle of the action and have to figure things out as we go along. We're not even going to get answers to the motivation of every character, but that's not needed. Do we need to know every detail behind why Mady is a good person, or why Yannick does what he does? We're given just enough, because it's not the backstory we're here for, but the chase."

   Avi Offer of NYC Movie Guru notes, "Mady (Jonathan Feltre), a locksmith, gets into serious trouble when Claire (Natacha Krief) tricks him into opening the door of someone else whom she steals from and runs away. The owner, Yannick (Romain Duris), a crime boss, returns and holds Mady hostage while demanding that he find the stolen goods from Claire before dawn or he'll kill him in Night Call. Screenplay by writer/director Michiel Blanchart and co-writer Gilles Marchand is a by-the-numbers, witless and shallow crime thriller that's low on palpable thrills. Yannick, the villain, is among the many underwritten characters with little to no backstory which makes him a weak and forgettable villain. He's more like a caricature of a villain. Mady is also a character who's poorly introduced. It seems like every character merely exists to move the plot forward. It's never a good sign when you can feel the wheels of the screenplay turning nor does it help that the plot becomes increasingly preposterous. Sure, there's some violence and gritty cinematography, but those strengths aren't enough to compensate for the unimaginative and pedestrian screenplay. Tarantino and Luc Besson could've turned this premise into a much more wildly entertaining ride rather than one that just goes through the motions while often falling flat. At a time of 1 hour and 37 minutes , Night Call opens in select theaters via Magnet Releasing."

Photo by Mike Von on Unsplash

    

'Sleep' Reviews: "Writer-director Jason Yu and his sharp cast keep things funny and warm as the nastiness creeps in, unsettling us in ways that cut to the bone"

         On September 27, 2024, Magnet Releasing released 'Sleep', which has earned predominantly positive reviews from critics, currently holding at 94% Recent on Rotten Tomatoes. "SLEEP follows newlyweds Hyun-su (Lee Sun-kyun, PARASITE) and Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi), whose domestic bliss is disrupted when Hyun-su begins speaking in his sleep, ominously stating, "Someone's inside." From that night on, whenever he falls asleep, Hyun-su transforms into someone else, with no recollection of what happened the night before. Overwhelmed with anxiety that he may hurt himself or their young family, Soo-jin can barely sleep because of this irrational fear. Despite treatment, Hyun-su's sleepwalking only intensifies, and Soo-jin begins to feel that her unborn child may be in danger." Read the full review round-up below.

       Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall says, "Writer-director Jason Yu and his sharp cast keep things funny and warm as the nastiness creeps in, unsettling us in ways that cut to the bone. So even if the story as a whole feels somewhat unfinished, it still leaves us shaken." Continuing, "The actors are so natural that they feel like real people. Even their more extreme reactions are easy to identify with, which adds to the suspense. Jung and Lee are also thoroughly likeable, so we root for both of them to overcome this together, as a sign on their wall encourages them to do. But it also becomes clear that the danger isn't only coming from the spirit realm. Meanwhile, each of the supporting roles feels bracingly realistic, including the psychic who arrives to give them a reading."

       Alistair Harkness of Scotsman notes, "Seasoned gore-hounds might not find it scary or bloody enough to disturb their own sleep, but there are still some properly jumpy moments that mark Yu out as a director to watch." Continuing, "Debut writer/director Jason Yu (who got his start working for Bong Joon-ho) is pretty adept here at melding humour and horror, ending the first chapter with a gloriously bad-taste escalation of Hyun-su’s nighttime activity before shifting gears with the second chapter, which takes place after Soo-jin gives birth and sees her own mental state disintegrating as deep-rooted fears about her baby’s safety start plaguing her own sleep and waking moments. The switch in perspective gives the film an added charge as this hitherto happy and trusting couple’s sudden paranoia about the other is amplified by the everyday stresses of having a newborn. As anyone who’s had one will know, a baby will test even the most solid of relationships and the film has sly fun challenging the mantra Hyun-su and Soo-jin have etched on a panel on their wall — “Together we can overcome anything” — by filtering their increasingly freaky experiences through the frazzled psyche of new parents operating on minimal sleep."

       Adam Sweeting of The Arts Desk writes, "Yu steers his film deftly to a turbulent climax, though after all that’s gone before his conclusion feels a little too tidy, not quite the cathartic eruption that he seemed to be leading us towards."

Photo Courtesy of Magnet Releasing

        Peter Bradshaw of Guardian praises the film, stating, "Kim Gook-hee gives an amusing, unsettling performance as their neighbour Min jeong who has a brattish son: she gets a dog exactly like theirs, something which Soo-jin interprets as an intolerable insult, for reasons she can’t fully explain. The movie expertly hits funny notes and light-relief moments that give us a break from fear while promising more to come, while the couple’s relationship with this ambiguously friendly neighbour is effectively managed. It is only with the explicit possibility of a supernatural explanation, combined with full-on psychiatric breakdown, that the movie loses its light touch and its plausible detail. Yet there’s always a hyper-vigilant twinge of fear."

'The Artic Convoy' Reviews: Film "succeeds in sharing another little-known true story from the many still yet to be told from World War II"

Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing

        On July 26, Magnet Releasing released ‘The Artic Convoy’, which has earned rave reviews, currently holding at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the film, which is set in 1942, a convoy transporting supplies to a Norwegian outpost takes a dangerous route despite misgivings by it’s military escort. Can they survive the element and German forces? The ensemble cast includes Tobias Santelmann, Anders Baasmo, Adam Lundgren, Jakob Fort, and Fredrik Stenberg Ditlev-Simonsen. Read the full review round-up below.

        Dennis Harvey of Variety praises the film, stating, “It’s a watchable if rather pedestrian exercise that could’ve used a more assertive directorial style, among other factors. By default, a major point of interest becomes the grubby interiors and dated technology of the ship itself, reportedly “played” by a preserved 1911 coal hauler that did tours of duty in both world wars. Otherwise, “The Arctic Convoy” is well-enough crafted on all levels to hold interest and maintain reasonable credibility, if not to make any distinctive impression. It isn’t sufficiently stirring to risk comparison with the prestige war films of recent years (like “Lone Survivor” or “All Quiet on the Western Front”), or so lively that it can recall scrapper B movies in that genre of decades past, like those of Sam Fuller’s. Anyone expecting more in the vein of the “Wave” trilogy’s vicarious thrills will definitely not find it here. Instead, they’ll get an intriguing historical back chapter fictionalized in a way that provides OK entertainment, albeit minus the full gravity or excitement that chapter surely deserves.”

         Keith Garlington of Keith & the Movies says, “The Arctic Convoy” succeeds in sharing another little-known true story from the many still yet to be told from World War II. Strong performances and a character-driven focus adds some unexpected layers to this riveting, edge-of-your-seat nautical drama.”

Mark Dujsik of Mark Reviews Movies notes, “There are some other characters of note here—mainly Swedish gunner Johan (Adam Lundgren) and his young assistant Sigurd (Jon Ranes), who gradually form a fraternal bond that means more to each one than the other knows. They provide a sense of the personal stakes of this story, as planes strafe the deck and the climax revolves around one choice, in which either option could mean certain destruction and death. The film succeeds because of that focus on the human drama. The importance of the mission in The Arctic Convoy is apparent from the start and even clearer by the finale, but the story ensures that we have a firm understanding of the people caught in the middle of such a risky but necessary undertaking.”

Roger Moore of Movie Nation says, “Fans of combat films will find this cinematic comfort food pretty satifying, no matter how unappetizing that herring looks on the galley's plates at meal time.” Concluding, “There have been decades of versions of this sort of story for filmgoers to appreciate, most of them concentrated during and in the decade or so after the war ended. The recent “Greyhound” showed the murderous cat-and-mouse destroyer vs. U-Boats view of the Battle of the Atlantic. “Arctic” is the second Norwegian film to focus on conquered and occupied Norway’s greatest contribution to the war effort, following Netflix’s excellent three-part series “War Sailor.”