A fresh attempt at the one-take film, Nightride employs the format to explore a single night in the criminal underworld of Ireland. In the process, Nightride serves as a solid morality play and well-executed film that excels most when it plays out as a tense crime thriller.
Nightride takes place during a single night in Belfast, in a near-continuous single shot, focusing on the small-end criminal Budge (Moe Dunford). Hoping to escape the criminal world for an auto shop alongside a "civilian" friend, Budge has arranged for one more night's work serving as the go-between for a massive drug-smuggling scheme to pay his way out of the world. When he spots someone seemingly tailing him, he tries to instead lead them away from the deal in his car while he directs his associates to finish the job over the phone. Inevitably, everything becomes more chaotic. Budge is left to juggle his own morality and mortality while trying to figure out how to save himself and his girlfriend Sofia (Joana Ribeiro) from the grasp of the vicious crime lord Joe (Stephen Rea) and his agent Troy (Gerard Jordan).
Nightride effectively works as something akin to Guy Ritchtie's take on Tom Hardy's Locke, where the single shot of someone driving around a city at night ends up fueling massive tension. Ben Conway's script clips along at a fast pace without ever losing sight of Budge's arc and desperation. The narrative finds a happy balance between minor moments of humanity amidst the removed violence and chaos of the plot. While most of the characters are left relatively vague due to the singular focus of the film, Budge -- and to a lesser extent Sofia and Troy -- feel fittingly fleshed out for the film's twisty narrative.
Dunford in particular deserves praise for his performance as Budge. The film's handful of genuinely quiet moments works largely due to his performance, leaving the scenes intense and raw. Budge is a self-styled tough guy, a man who's never been stopped by the cops and always seems to talk his way out of trouble. Thanks to the unending focus of Stephen Fingleton's direction, Dunford peels those elements away, revealing a man just now realizing how out of his depth he really is. In these moments -- the silence waiting for someone to pick up a phone, the serenity of just having a cigarette in the open air -- Nightride shines.
Fingleton's direction is purposefully stark, largely focusing on Budge's face and little else save the handful of times the film comes to a halt and he exits the car. It's here that Fingleton's direction really sings, as he proves deft at knowing when to keep the camera pulled back to give confrontations additional layers of intensity or to zoom in and focus on Budge's moral conflict breaking out across his face. The film isn't necessarily perfect, with some of the rougher edges production-wise lending themselves to the general shaggy-dog nature of the story. The rest of the cast give good vocal-only performances, but their characters ultimately feel one-dimensional. This is in part because there are few ways for the film to shift focus to them without losing the inherent creative drive of the film).
The third act also loses some of the tight pacing and tension of the first half, whereas a bit more suspense could have benefited the plot developments. Like Locke before it, the film can feel static at times, even if the standstill is purposeful. It's worth commending Nightride for turning a simple concept into such a tense thriller. When the film works, it works. Moments where Budge tries to scramble to call anyone who can fix his quickly escalating situation truly land. Nightride is a successful attempt at melding a unique directorial approach to a strong script, all anchored by a strong central performance by Dunford. For fans of crime thrillers especially, Nightride is a solid outing.