[rating=4.00]
The Night Clerk is a bizarre little crime drama that manages to feel neither engaging while watching it nor conclusive by the time the credits roll. The film centers around Bart (Tye Sheridan), who works the eponymous gig at a hotel. Bart, however, has Asperger’s syndrome, which Sheridan plays like some kind of college sophomore’s impression of someone with Asperger’s.
Because Bart has trouble interacting with people (as well as blinking, which is either another over-exagerrated aspect of Sheridan’s performance or simply due to the fact that we’re all used to seeing him act with a visor on), he films guests at the hotel. Making it some kind of mashup between 1993’s Sliver starring Wes Bentley’s character in American Beauty, if you were able to somehow make him even less charming. Which, congrats, I guess.
Due to Bart’s proclivity for voyeurism, and the setting during the graveyard shift at a shitty hotel chain, he soon witnesses, as well as records, a murder. What follows is a kind of hamstrung fish-out-of-water scenario, with an alienated kid somehow navigating the web of intrigue. One might even call it a game of cat-and-mouse, although that works better if the cat was extremely lazy and/or tired and the mouse was also sedated in some way.
The cop trying to crack the case, Johnny Espada (John Leguizamo, who generally seems to be enjoying the character work he’s been getting these past few years), is pretty hip to what’s ‘really’ going on, but Bart’s mother, Ethal (Helen Hunt) constantly runs interference while she shields her “special” little boy.
The film only becomes remotely interesting when Ana de Armas’ Andrea shows up, a mysterious and sultry hotel regular who may (or may not) be at risk of being the killer’s next victim. de Armas, fresh off a Golden Globe nomination for her work in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, effortlessly puts her natural charisma on display, and single-handedly manages to elevate every scene she takes part in.
Considering that the film was shot in mid-2018, and only getting a release this weekend, one has to wonder how much the project will be relying on de Armas’ name to catch the attention of filmgoers.
Unfortunately, writer/director Michael Cristofer never quite manages to pull all the elements of The Night Clerk together, the result is less a bad film and more of a bland one. Although anyone who’s ever worked an actual night shift will feel the familiar sensation of lackadaisical disengagement.
The Night Clerk is now playing in select theaters and On Demand.
