Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction created a subgenre of cinema that is extremely hard to actually describe, and rarely any good. All of these imitators are mild neo-noirs that tend to feature hyper-masculine characters, gunplay and multiple timelines. The main issue with these films is that they do not have the soul that Tarantino's classic had, and soul is something that you cannot just fake. Unfortunately, American Night fits in perfectly with these imitators. American Night is a movie with no purpose, and it elongates a very simple story for no reason, resulting in a convoluted mess that gets more and more frustrating to sit through as it goes on.
American Night's attempt at a plot follows several characters who are desperate to get their hands on a long-lost Andy Warhol painting that has recently surfaced. Among these characters are a famous art dealer and ex-forger (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a violent gangster with a penchant for painting (Emile Hirsch) and a wannabe ninja (Jeremy Piven).
Written and directed by newcomer Alessio Della Valle, American Night is extremely unfocused, jumping from timeline to timeline frantically, often showing the audience a flashback within a flashback. None of this is necessary, and while a nonlinear narrative works with other neo-noir films, it really hinders American Night. The editing may be the biggest issue of the film, which is sometimes reminiscent of 2016's Suicide Squad, equipped with cheesy text that describes the lead characters. There could be a competent movie lurking somewhere within what we got, but this finished product certainly isn't it.
This movie is flashy for the sake of being flashy, and it starts to feel tacky very quickly. All of the main characters are paper-thin, and instead of diving deeper into any of them, more and more random characters are thrown into the mix, further convoluting a mess of a story. This movie bites off way more than it can chew, and if it simplified itself, it may have been able to work. However, it feels like a story that could have been told in 20 minutes stretched to two hours, and it becomes extremely repetitive and dull, despite some random bursts of excitement that always feel too little too late. American Night needed to find its own voice, because it's a movie that is just trying to emulate better quality films without much else to say, resulting in a rather pointless experience.
It's not just the story of this movie that fails, because almost every aspect of American Night feels clumsy, and it's sometimes so bad it becomes unintentionally funny. While the film unfolds, it's easy to expect that it will all come together in the end, but it only gets more and more unintelligible as it goes on. The sets are so awkwardly bright with neon colors that it becomes washed out, and the location of the film looks nothing like New York City, where it supposedly takes place. Almost every single aspect of this movie is so unbelievable that it's almost impossible not to be taken out of it.
All of the actors here are trying, but none of the characters have enough depth for them to create anything that isn't one-note. Hirsch in particular, who has given some excellent performances throughout his career, tries his hardest as a pretentious gangster, but a lack of authenticity and some unfortunate circumstances involving an extremely noticeable bald cap make it so bad it's hilarious.
Some of the mistakes cause this film to feel entertaining, in a cringey sort of way. If the movie didn't rely on the gimmicky and confusing usage of multiple timelines, didn't try so hard to be something it's not and was told with more finesse and in a more linear fashion, it could have been something notable. American Night is only notable for how unengaging it is.
Starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Emile Hirsch, Jeremy Piven, Paz Vega, and Michael Madsen, American Night is now in select theaters, on VOD and Digital.