The Night Clerk

“Tye Sheridan stars as hotel night clerk Bart Bromley who is a highly intelligent young man on the Autism spectrum. When a woman is murdered during his shift, Bart becomes the prime suspect. As the police investigation closes in, Bart makes a personal connection with a beautiful guest (Ana De Armas), but soon realizes he must stop the real murderer before she becomes the next victim. Also starring Helen Hunt and John Lequizamo.”

Bart Bromley’s job as a hotel night clerk gives him ample opportunity to watch people from a distance to study their behavior, and as a person with Asperger’s this gives him a chance to emulate the social interaction that he simply cannot comprehend. This fascination with social interaction goes a bit further than just his interactions with customers at the counter, his technical knowledge and curiosity allows him to plant hidden cameras in one of the hotel rooms as he funnels those he finds most interesting there to watch them without their knowledge. One night, a particularly beautiful woman comes in for a room. After Bart sends her to the room with the cameras, his replacement comes in and he goes home, still able to watch her on his computer. When a visitor enters the room from the outside doors, a brief argument and struggle ensue. Bart’s immediate instinct is to help, and he rushes back to the hotel to try and intervene. A gunshot is heard, and the new desk clerk enters to see Bart sitting on the bed next to the dead woman. The story evolves with Bart being the prime suspect in the murder, even though he has the ability to prove his innocence by showing the footage he captured. As he continues on with his job he sets his sights on a new woman who has found him interesting, but he soon finds out she is somehow involved in this entire thing and may become the next victim.

Saban Films has had an interesting run despite their beginnings only six short years ago. Although seemingly a small production company, they are able to acquire some significant star power when it comes to their films. When you look at their lengthy list they’ve been able to produce in that short amount of time, it’s evident that they aren’t going for box office dominance, but to produce smaller budget films that may not have seen the light of day otherwise. While this is bound to create some duds, it also paves the way for some original content that wouldn’t have survived in this comic-book dominated Hollywood.

The Night Clerk fits this description perfectly. It has some impressive star power, with Tye Sheridan coming off success with Ready Player One, and not so much success with the X-Men franchise. He plays the part of someone with Asperger’s well, and is able to convey an impressive performance and carry the weight of the film. Although I wasn’t a huge fan of Knives Out, one aspect I was a fan of was Ana de Armas. Her performance in this film is perhaps the best thing about it. Her character of Andrea is beautiful, mysterious, keeping the audience guessing the entire time. If you find yourself not believing the reality of certain actions of the characters, the character of Andrea will pull you back into the film.

The film can be quite compelling at times, offering up some good entertainment along the way in the form of performances. The only downfall is that the film is predicated around a supposed mystery of the murder, but the killer might as well be directly named as it is obvious who it is, leaving you wondering if we are supposed to be guessing who it is or not, just who is supposed to be in on it and their role to play. This is a very distracting portion of the story involving the main antagonist, who I can’t even remember their name he is so forgettable. This is where it gets a bit too cloudy, the lack of a clear antagonist and why we even care about him in relation to Bart. This leads me to my next question: why is Bart even a suspect? One of the SD cards is found with a floor view of the altercation. Although this doesn’t show faces, with some proper investigation it can be easily determined it’s not him. That still doesn’t really tell why Bart wouldn’t give the SD cards over to the police anyway. Is he embarrassed of what he did? Think he’ll get in trouble? He seems to be a very smart individual, going as far as removing all evidence of the recording devices and wiping his computer at home, so he has to realize copping to being potentially labeled a pervert would be better than going to jail for murder? Well, without that bit of illogical thinking we wouldn’t have a story on our hands. It may be a weak thread to connect it all together, but they do it, and it doesn’t really help to solidify the compelling story it could have been.

Video

The Night Clerk is presented in 480i Widescreen 1.85:1 DVD only. I can understand the reasoning behind releasing the film only in DVD given the relative low cost for production, but in a world of high resolution, and this is for me personally, it’s hard to even watch the film because of the low quality. The picture is clearly not going to be very detailed, which is a major distraction. The digital code is included which can get you the 1080p version, which is how I would recommend watching this.

Audio

The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. The track sounds fine for what it is, mostly dialogue. It’s well balanced with no issues noted.

Special Features

There are no extras on the DVD.

The Night Clerk can offer some quality entertainment if you can look past the weak portions of the story. It’s filled with some great performances, especially by Sheridan and Armas. Check it out, preferably on digital to get the high resolution of the film.