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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 438717" data-attributes="member: 23">Night Game (1989) <img src="https://scopophiliamovieblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/nightgame1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 659px" />This has been in my watch list for a long time, purely on the basis that Roy Scheider features. Hand on heart I've put off watching because the little I've read about it hasn't been kind. In short, it's felt that Scheider's talents are wasted in what I've seen described as a lazy, sub-par slasher.Beyond the fact that Roy plays a detective here, I knew nothing of the plot and it was mercifully better than I'd feared, though it's not without its flaws (a missed marketing opportunity to tap into some nostalgia, perhaps. They could have been upfront about its shortcomings and rebranded the film as "Flaws").The film could be best described as a Curate's egg, so let's get this over with: the most flawed part of the film is its main plot. The murder sequences are very cheesy and lower the class. Generic young women are chased round and start screaming like bimbos and acting so counter-intuitively they simply deserve to be caught. They all take place at night, of course (especially given the title) and we even have the obligatory killer POV.  There's no suspense. It doesn't frighten or even get into one's head. They aren't even entertaining as some bad slashers can be. Frankly, it would have been best for these to occur off-screen. In better news, these sequences only make up a few minutes of the film in total.I haven't posted the film's original poster as it reveals a key plot point that doesn't come to light until the final act (Prime didn't allude to this and I was grateful since otherwise it would have been even more futile to have watched knowing what was coming). But that revealed fact is what makes it so silly on paper: the killer has an honest to God [ISPOILER]hook for a hand. The big screen version of The Fugitive pulled off this detail with aplomb, but that was a superior product. [/ISPOILER]Here it simply compounds the low-grade slasher element.The film's TV movie tone isn't all bad, though. Some decent character actors bring some gravitas and a kinetic energy to the procedural scenes, which played out like a pilot episode of a potentially good crime series based in Galveston. I can't help wondering if the film was somewhat influenced by The Big Easy (in which one of Scheider's recast screen sons had played lead). Both create an atmosphere that's hot and steamy, where characters glow with perspiration while speaking in a southern drawl as they investigate the city's dark underbelly (caveat, though: if there are similarities, Night Game is very much the EDT version of The Big Easy's heady fragrance).Familiar faces include: Mary Beth Lacey's father; the Principal from The Breakfast Club (also seen in several Murder She Wrotes, a few Dallases and at least one Columbo); and Lois & Clark's Perry White. Even the ones I don't specifically know from anything else look and feel familiar and established, so the casting is good when it comes to the colleagues.Even though I'm not sure I've seen her in anything. Carlyn Glynn feels familiar as the delightfully brassy mother who disapproves of her daughter's relationship with Scheider's character: a man she herself went to school with and, perhaps, had a bit of a crush on. There are a number of nicely tense scenes between them, including a fun spat in a bridal wear shop, where Scheider walks out, repeatedly ordering her to return the 19" TV he's just bought for her by leaving it outside her front door (as a final gesture, he mimes out the action of a TV being lifted and placed, evidently realising she isn't listening to his words).The age gap relationship is curious. It's not treated as a significant plot point, or a Chekov's Gun, but rather as a simple matter of fact. I suppose it does help add a potentially personal touch since she fits the killer's demographic. With Chief Brody being Roy's best-known role, the most novel-stroke-disturbing aspect is that Scheider's young girlfriend is played by Karen Young who, a couple of years before this, had played the deceased Chief Brody's young daughter-in-law in Jaws: The Revenge. I find myself wondering if that connection was mentioned in the green room but, given Roy's antipathy towards even the first sequel - not to mention that he'd flatly instructed the powers that be where to stick Jaws: The Revenge upon being offered a cameo where his character was to be devoured by a shark - I can imagine the subject might have been verboten.Scheider himself is as solid as ever. It's worth watching for him alone. If he had any awareness that this wasn't a great film, it doesn't particularly show. If anything it possibly reads as a slight weariness, which only enhances his character.</blockquote>

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