Review: The Night Clerk

Blu-ray & DVD: The Night Clerk (2020)

Bart (Tye Sheridan) works the night shift at a local motel, and during his shifts he spies on guests by watching video feeds from camera’s fitted in some rooms. Creepy? Yep, however Bart has an excuse; he’s watching to learn how to be ‘normal’ as he has Asperger’s.

We see his home life and how he lives with, yet apart from, his mother (a facially challenged Helen Hunt) and he studies the people he spies on in order to learn from their speech patterns, which he repeats what they say and has ‘conversations’ with them.

He watches these feeds at home and one evening he witnesses a murder. Instead of calling the cops, he drives very quickly to the hotel, only to get there just after the perpetrator has left, leaving him literally with blood on his hands. The police of course suspect him of being the murderer.

Enter the stunning Andrea (Ana De Armas) who has come to stay at the hotel, who is kind and listens to Bart, and who he falls in love with.

Of course you can guess where the plot is going, it’s that obvious and an  implausible level of coincidence and weird decisions by characters leave you guessing every single move.

However De Armas is beautiful to look at and Sheridan does a good job of not ramping up the ‘never go full retard’ aspect of the story. John Leguizamo as the disbelieving cop investigating the case doesn’t make a mark and Helen Hunt, well… you can’t get past wondering what happened to her face.

Having said all this, it did hold my attention but is really let down by the NON-ending….it just sort of tapers off. Which is a shame because a good solid ending would have made it a more satisfying story.

Not great, but not terrible either. Just a bit Meh.

Review by Tina from a disc kindly supplied by 101 Films.

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