Movie #21 Night Watch

You might have noticed that I have changed the title of my blogs from "Day #" to "Movie #".  I have become fully aware of the difficultly of attempting to watch a movie every day AND blog about them.  All the while keeping a more than full time job and spending quality time with my kids, girlfrined, and family.  So, I am now going to see how many movies I can cram into 1 year.  Who knows, maybe it will be close to 365.  But I think now that 1 a day is unachievable for me.  None the less I intend on continuing to watch a variety of movies and obsessing about them at every opportunity. 

With that out of the way allow me to tell you about a film called Night Watch.  Night Watch is a Russian film made in 2004 by director Timur Bermambetov.  It is a story set in a world where some humans (called "Others") have a varying degree of special powers.  These Others have existed since the dawn of time.  A long time ago they had a battle and in the outcome was a truce.  The Other were split into two groups, the Light and the Dark  Once you discovered that you, as a human, had special powers you had to decide which group you wanted to belong to.  The Dark Others are vampires and the Light Others have a police like unit that patrols the evenings called Night Watch. 

The Light and the Dark generally get along and live together in a very civilized manor.  That is until one member, of either side, gets out of line.  Their relationship is like police and civilians   There are no problems as long as both parties keep the peace.  Once either side brakes the rules, all hell breaks loose.  Pun intended.

Night Watch is a kinetic, horror / crime drama.  Picture "The Matrix" + "28 Days Later" with a dash of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" thrown for kicks.  It is not hard to tell that this is a foreign film.  I watched it in dubbed English and didn't actually find it that distracting.  This film is rapid paced and doesn't pull any punches or hesitate to answer any questions for you.  At points I feel like it got away from it's director a little.  Kind of like he had a lot of ideas he wanted to throw in there and crammed them in where maybe they didn't need to be or just flat out didn't belong. 

As a whole I really liked this film.  It was one of the most modern looking foreign films that I have seen.  Particularly of this genre.  The acting is not quite stellar.  There were some characters that it looked like they hadn't received any direction at all.  Understanding that some of that could have been lost in translation. 

The story bounces around between the main character whose found out he had special powers (although they are not used very often) when he went to a fortune teller who was a dark other.  He then joins the Night Watch.  Another story is that of a woman cursed who is unwilling and seemingly unknowingly opening a portal to the end of the world???  There is a female vampire who is scorned by the murder of her lover by the lead character.  The lady vampire is using a siren like call to summon a little boy who could shift the ballance of power to whatever side he chooses.  The boy is being protected by light other shape shifters that turn into a tiger and a bear.  Like I said, this film is a little over crammed with plot.

After the film was over I wasn't sure what I had saw, but I was sure that I enjoyed it.  It reminded me of a lot of poorly made American action and horror movies in it's cheesyness, but it never rang false.  If you are willing to go along for the ride it will pay off in spades.  I give this film a 3/5 stars and I am looking forward to watching Day Watch soon.  Rumor has it that there is an American remake in the works.  For more information check out the link below for the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMHQsjgQDrA