Overnight (2003)
April 11, 2025 10:46 PM - Subscribe
Alternately hilarious and horrifying, Overnight chronicles one man's misadventures of making a Hollywood movie. It starts out as a rags to riches story as Troy Duffy, a Boston-bred bartender, sells his first screenplay for The Boondock Saints.
When The Boondock Saints showed up on FanFare last year, I mused that I wasn't particularly interested in seeing it, but, based on some of the links to reviews/critiques, I might look up the documentary Overnight (about the making of the film, shot by friends of writer/director/member of the soundtrack band Troy Duffy) instead. I did finally see The Boondock Saints, thanks to streaming, and frankly, it was kind of a chore--whatever professional help Duffy got was clearly insufficient to make up for his inexperience and the many, many problems with the script. So, I decided to look up the documentary to see if it was all it was reputed to be.
And it is; much more compelling than the movie whose production it documents. A lot of that comes down to simply giving Duffy enough rope, since Duffy regularly makes use of every inch of that rope. A recurrent motif is that of Duffy, who not only doesn't know jack about shit WRT making movies, but seems to have convinced himself that being even minimally competent at doing so would be some kind of hindrance, bloviating at length about the business, usually disparaging anyone and everyone who won't give him what he wants, while members of his posse/entourage/production company/band (more than one person seems to fill more than one role), quite often including a relative, look on with utterly blank expressions. He also smokes more than any human being that I've known personally. The two people whose presences sort of hover over the film are Harvey Weinstein, who appears very briefly in the scenes shot at Cannes (this movie came out well before his exposure and downfall), and Quentin Tarantino, who I don't think is mentioned once but seems to be the prototype for the outsider who eventually breaks into film in a huge way, largely on the basis of a screenplay with lots of violence in it. (Tarantino still had much more experience with the industry than Duffy before he did Reservoir Dogs, but anyway.) Eventually, Duffy did get a kind of success thanks to Blockbuster, and got to do a sequel, and there's apparently even been talk of a remake (because everything is being remade), but anyone who is even briefly thinking of working with Duffy would be well advised to watch this.
When The Boondock Saints showed up on FanFare last year, I mused that I wasn't particularly interested in seeing it, but, based on some of the links to reviews/critiques, I might look up the documentary Overnight (about the making of the film, shot by friends of writer/director/member of the soundtrack band Troy Duffy) instead. I did finally see The Boondock Saints, thanks to streaming, and frankly, it was kind of a chore--whatever professional help Duffy got was clearly insufficient to make up for his inexperience and the many, many problems with the script. So, I decided to look up the documentary to see if it was all it was reputed to be.
And it is; much more compelling than the movie whose production it documents. A lot of that comes down to simply giving Duffy enough rope, since Duffy regularly makes use of every inch of that rope. A recurrent motif is that of Duffy, who not only doesn't know jack about shit WRT making movies, but seems to have convinced himself that being even minimally competent at doing so would be some kind of hindrance, bloviating at length about the business, usually disparaging anyone and everyone who won't give him what he wants, while members of his posse/entourage/production company/band (more than one person seems to fill more than one role), quite often including a relative, look on with utterly blank expressions. He also smokes more than any human being that I've known personally. The two people whose presences sort of hover over the film are Harvey Weinstein, who appears very briefly in the scenes shot at Cannes (this movie came out well before his exposure and downfall), and Quentin Tarantino, who I don't think is mentioned once but seems to be the prototype for the outsider who eventually breaks into film in a huge way, largely on the basis of a screenplay with lots of violence in it. (Tarantino still had much more experience with the industry than Duffy before he did Reservoir Dogs, but anyway.) Eventually, Duffy did get a kind of success thanks to Blockbuster, and got to do a sequel, and there's apparently even been talk of a remake (because everything is being remade), but anyone who is even briefly thinking of working with Duffy would be well advised to watch this.
Rocking out to The Brood tonight.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:33 AM on April 12
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:33 AM on April 12
Moral of the story - there are Troy Duffys in this world. Don't be one.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 6:48 AM on April 12
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 6:48 AM on April 12
He's such a constant asshole during the entire filming of his movie, and seems surprised when people don't respond well do that. He could improve his working relationships if he could just shut up for a second, but he just... keeps... talking... He's the poster boy for toxic masculinity, always doubling down on damaging behavior (to others, to himself), rather than do two seconds of introspection.
posted by mrphancy at 7:48 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
posted by mrphancy at 7:48 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
I never knew until reading that blurb that Troy Duffy was a bartender from Boston, but my God, it's like they perfected the conditions for making a toxic masculine asshole in a lab.
Boondock Saints is one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life, but I'm sort of glad it exists because if someone tells me they love it it's like a red flag you can see from space. It's not one of those movies like Fight Club where you have to deduce whether the person who loves it is one of the good fans or one of the bad ones.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:55 PM on April 13 [2 favorites]
Boondock Saints is one of the worst movies I've ever seen in my life, but I'm sort of glad it exists because if someone tells me they love it it's like a red flag you can see from space. It's not one of those movies like Fight Club where you have to deduce whether the person who loves it is one of the good fans or one of the bad ones.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:55 PM on April 13 [2 favorites]
And I should say, Boondock Saints is a bad movie not just conceptually, but structurally and artistically. Like, I love Clint Eastwood westerns; I know their politics are bad, but they're made well. Boondock Saints is amateurish and shitty, a movie that makes Clerks look like it was directed by David Lean. So the only reason you even could like it, other than just the worst taste of all time, is its politics.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:00 PM on April 13 [1 favorite]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:00 PM on April 13 [1 favorite]
But Willem Dafoe
posted by ginger.beef at 6:18 PM on April 13 [1 favorite]
posted by ginger.beef at 6:18 PM on April 13 [1 favorite]
I can only imagine there was some kind of Nicolas-Cage-in-the-'10s-style IRS issue going on.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:28 PM on April 13
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:28 PM on April 13
I think we can say that Willem Dafoe sometimes signs on to do the most impressive acting and sometimes merely signs on to do the most acting.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:18 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:18 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]
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