Overnight review by The Grim Ringler
OvernightSometimes the worst thing that can happen is for your dreams to come true, witness the story of director Troy Duffy, the man who brought the world BOONDOCK SAINTS. For Duffy, his every dream was on the verge of coming through but just as it was happening, everything fell apart and now, all that remains of the wunderkind is a cautionary tale of what not to do on your way to the top. OVERNIGHT is the chronicle of the fall from grace.
OVERNIGHT was filmed while young filmmaker Troy Duffy was in the middle of a bidding war on his script for a film entitled The Boondock Saints. Duffy was a Boston kid that had written a smart, funny script for a crime thriller that was getting a lot of attention in Hollywood. As he was pursuing his film, Duffy was also heavily involved in his band, a rock group that was getting just as much attention from labels as he was from agents. Duffy is a gruff, no nonsense neighborhood guy who is loyal to his friends and refuses to back down in face of the power people who are suddenly interested in him. When the Weinstein’s buy his script for Saints, Duffy is on the fast track to fame, suddenly courting Hollywood actors for his film as he begins the pre-production process. More amazing than the interest in Saints though is that there is an equal fervor for Duffy’s band, which will score his film. Every trade paper sang Duffy’s praises and wrote on and on about how amazing this young talent was going to be.
And then everything fell apart.
Duffy started abusing his power, making demands of the Weinstein’s, and throwing an onscreen tantrum when an actor he coveted passed on the film. Suddenly the Brothers Weinsten stopped taking his calls and Saints was well on its way to becoming another failure. Duffy, it seemed, had been pushing his luck too hard. He refused to wait for the process of filmmaking to take its natural course, instead, he did as he’d always done – stood toe to toe with the power people and refused to back down. While this approach had helped to get him his music and movie deals, both unprecedented at the time, this bravado had also angered his investors. The stress and tension begins to affect not just Duffy’s film, but his band, as he begins pushing his bandmates, his friends, into making decisions that they don’t quite seem ready to make. And just like that Duffy is back to square one with both passions, and the walls are closing in. All he has is his movie, and his music, and with these crumbling, just as his relationships begin to crack, he has to put it all back together before he loses everything.
OVERNIGHT is the oft-times painful look at talent gone mad. This is an invaluable film for anyone involved in filmmaking as a sort of warning as to what damage you can do to yourself when you buy into your own hype. In the end, Duffy’s film was made, but he has barely made a dime off of a film that became a modern cult classic, and since, his name has been mud when it came to the movie industry. Sadly, Duffy is the legend that filmmakers tell one another in the darkness, to scare each other back from the edge. This is an unblinking look into the making of a film, and it really is a captivating film. It’s heartbreaking to see how much Duffy is willing to lose in order to make his film, and how power-mad he gets. Truly, a must see for fans of the film, and for anyone interested in how movies are made.
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