Overnight

Directed by Mark Brian Smith

Documentary

115 minutes runtime

MPAA Rating:  Unrated, probably R for language

USA Release: November 10, 2004

Rating (Out of 5 stars): ** 1/2

"Overnight" is reality TV that may be too real for many, as will its protagonist Troy Duffy, drunk made temporarily good by manna from Miramax.  A barhop and bouncer with a talent for drinking until senseless, Troy writes a screenplay, “The Boondock Saints,” that is immediately seized upon by Harvey Weinstein as the next great step in street-hip cinema.  Miramax buys the screenplay for a reputed six figure sum and Harvey sponsors Troy in buying Troy’s place of employment; the dive J. Sloan’s in Los Angeles, and “giving” it to Troy as a signing bonus.

What follows is the most amazing piece of home video since “Capturing the Friedmans,” in which Troy hob-nobs with Los Angeles film celebrities who turn J. Sloan’s into the place to be seen (or the place to be blind drunk, sometimes its hard to say).  After all, Weinstein and Miramax were drunk with power and success in the wake of sweeping the Academy Awards in 1997 and they decided to spread the wealth in the form of money and influence to get a new crop of edgy and personalized films in the pipeline.  Reading between the lines in “Overnight,” they may have taken chances on several, or several dozen, would-be writer/directors like Troy.  Some might have made it. If so, this film doesn’t tell us about them.  It tells us about Duffy.

Two factors came together in the making of this film.  The first was that Troy Duffy happened to disclose his screenplay to aspiring film-maker Tony Montana in J. Sloan’s bar in Los Angeles in 1996.  Montana was fresh out of film school and wanted a new and different documentary project.  This looked like it.  Troy introduced his friend Mark Brian Smith and the Montana/Smith team was given control of the project of filming the anticipated rise to glory of Duffy, the movie “The Boondock Saints” and Duffy’s band “The Brood,” who were to record the soundtrack for the movie as well as to-be-determined spin-off albums.

The second factor was that Duffy was in no way ready for any of the demands that were about to be placed on him by Weinstein and Miramax.  The studio did its part, which was to create a nuclear chain reaction of charismatic publicity surrounding Troy.  He was on magazine covers, and film stars from far and wide converged on Sloan’s dump to get a piece of the media Ponzi scheme.  But clearer minds prevailed and, when push came to shove, Troy’s brand of swashbuckling silliness simply couldn’t cut the mustard.  His final temper tantrums, filmed in brutal clarity by Smith and Montana, sealed his fate with producers at Miramax---he was dog meat.  The film’s subsequent decent into the humiliating obscurity of flop-house theatres is the ultimate twisting of the artistic knife.  Duffy would have been better off if the movie was never made.

But it wasn’t just Troy who was sucked into the quagmire.  His five best friends and his brother, who were part of his band, “The Brood,” were entrapped as well.  Expecting to share the wealth after an initial period of somewhat disciplined starvation living on alcohol and peanuts, it is through their eyes that we see Duffy transformed from buddy to bully.  With gut-wrenching accuracy the film documents the bands’ tortuous disintegration and Troy’s apparent decent into clinical psychosis.

Duffy’s newly purchased J. Sloan’s was deluged in stars drawn to the flame of Miramax money.  These stars could have made “Boondock Saints” a success, but they failed to sign.  The Brood’s recording sessions were manned by no less than a Doobie Brother at the controls, whose advice was ignored repeatedly by Duffy.  When the recording sessions lapsed, the record was abandoned, at about the same time as the screenplay became non-news at Miramax.

More than just a social adventure film, “Overnight” probes the question of the morality of setting people up to fail.  Is it moral to give five people seed money for projects if the donor knows that the money will ruin the lives of four, but make the fifth a pre-eminent success?  Is it the place of capitalist captains of industry to worry about the consequences of their gambling with other’s lives?  There is no question that Weinstein held the ball out for Troy only to have Miramax pull it away at the last minute.  But when it happens over and over, whose fault is it?  After the first fifteen minutes, Duffy’s failure starts to look fairly reasonable.  The press kit describes him as charismatic, which will be seen as charitable in the eyes of many to whom he is more a fool rightfully parted from his money.  A more powerful story would have been Duffy doing something right.

The trick of a truly excellent act is to have the act take on a life of its own, and this movie does that.  It goes places nobody could imagine.  If Duffy is not charismatic, the film itself is.  The movie itself has the leadership, and the actors and film crew are just following along.  What a wonderful juxtaposition.  The film is entertaining, although I saw enough drunk acts in college and don't place lot of value on them on screen.  But the story is what it is.  The ending shots of tearing down J. Sloan's bar were touching and provided excellent closure.  But will it compete with films that tell a deeper story?  Probably not.

Harvey Weinstein has gone on to other projects and Duffy probably has another bar-tending job; but it’s not over yet.  Because, in spite of it all, Duffy has his film.  It may not be the film he thought it was going to be, but he is famous.  He was never meant to be the director, but the star, in the first place.  He is the fool on the hill who is having the last laugh on us all after having created, live, one very intricate and genuine pratfall.