Survive the Night 2020 * * 1/2 Stars

Director: Matt Eskandari
Year: 2020
Rated R
Rating: * * 1/2 Stars
Cast: Bruce Willis, Chad Michael Murray, Lydia Hull

"We weren't perfect but no one is". Survive the Night (my latest review) isn't perfect. Heck, it's not even close. But "Night" does have a few tense moments. And co-star Bruce "paycheck" Willis does emote slightly. In verity, he even manages to move from point A to point B and probably showed up on set for more than a week (ha-ha).

Survive the Night while compact in its first half as a ruffian thriller, descends into senseless and labored drivel towards the end. Reminiscent of home invasion stuff like No Good Deed and 2018's Breaking In, "Night" recycles its "evil that men do" screenplay to the point where it rights itself into a corner. "Night's" eighty-six minute running time feels like darn near two hours. I kept wondering why the protagonist characters didn't just get in a car and drive away when they had the chance.

Nasty, remorseless, violent, and taking place in the middle of nowhere, Survive the Night is a sweaty B-movie where the authorities are phantoms that never show up once. Filmed on location in Columbus, Georgia, "Night's" direction by Matt Eskandari is amicable but pretty basic.

On the plus side, the kicker is that Survive the Night has an original hook. The only reason the "good cop/bad cop" criminals invade a country home is because one of them is dying from a gunshot wound and a failed doctor happens to live there.

All in all, Survive the Night does have decent performances (especially Chad Michael Murray as the doc mentioned in the last paragraph) and it effectively hammers the notion that bad things happen to good people. Still, I can't for the life of me recommend "Night" (it was difficult experiencing a scene where a pregnant woman persona gets executed at a convenience store). By tooth and nail, I did "survive" it though. Rating: 2 and a half stars.

Written by Jesse Burleson