Dom Robinson reviews
One Night Stand
It was just one night that changed everything.
Distributed by
Entertainment in Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: EDV 9080
- Running time: 99 minutes
- Year: 1998
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Widescreen: 1.85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £15.99
- Extras : Scene index, Trailer
Director:
(Internal Affairs, Leaving Las Vegas, Liebestraum, One Night Stand, Stormy Monday, Timecode 2000)
Producers:
Mike Figgis, Annie Stewart and Ben Myron
Screenplay:
Music:
Cast:
Max Carlyle: Wesley Snipes (Blade, Demolition Man, Drop Zone, The Fan, Jungle Fever, King of New York, Mo' Better Blues, Money Train, Murder At 1600,
New Jack City, One Night Stand, Passenger 57, Rising Sun, Sugar Hill, To Wong Foo, U.S. Marshalls, White Men Can't Jump)
Karen: Nastassja Kinski (Cat People, Faraway So Close, Father's Day, The Lost Son, One Night Stand, Paris Texas, Revolution, Savior, Terminal Velocity, Tess, To the Devil a Daughter)
Vernon: Kyle MacLachlan (Against The Wall, Blue Velvet, Dune, The Flintstones, One Night Stand, Roswell, Showgirls, Trigger Happy, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, TV: Twin Peaks)
Charlie: Robert Downey Jr. (The Gingerbread Man, In Dreams, Less Than Zero, Natural Born Killers, One Night Stand, Only You, Restoration, Richard III, Short Cuts, Two Girls and a Guy, U.S. Marshalls, Weird Science)
One Night Stand
starts with the unsubtle approach of introducing its main character by having him talk to
the camera while walking along the street. The man is ad exec Max Carlyle (Wesley Snipes).
He's good at his job, has a beautiful wife Mimi (Ming-na Wen, most recently seen on
TV in E.R. as Dr. Chen) and the kind of gorgeous, massive house that the trappings of
success bring, but after a chance flirtation with high-flyer Karen (Nastassja Kinski),
while the cat's away...
Thrown in to eek out the running time is Robert Downey Jr. as Max's gay best friend
Charlie who's contracted AIDS, as is a moment when our happy couple get mugged because
stereotypical inner city USA is a nasty place to be late at night. However, it is the latter
experience which fuels their passion, although there's about as much chemistry between them
as an extinguished flame.
A year later, Charlie's in a bad way and we meet the other principal character, Charlie's
brother Vernon (Kyle MacLachlan) and guess who his wife is? No, you don't have to
guess - even the trailer tells you who.
The picture is anamorphic and in its original 1.85:1 ratio, but has a layer of grain
throughout most of it, the colours seem muted and it all looks rather underwhelming.
The average bitrate is a so-so 5.34Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 8Mb/s.
Filmed with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, EiV feel only like providing us with a ProLogic
version. The score, from Figgis, isn't particularly memorable and there's not a great deal
else to shout about here.
Extras :
Chapters :
There are just a mere 12 chapters. Not enough. They're also timed to tell you when they should
change but all those timings are an HOUR out.
Languages and Subtitles :
There's just one language on this disc - English in ProLogic and no subtitles.
Are all DVD owners assumed to have perfect pitch and fully-working ears?
And there's more... :
A Trailer. That's it. The Region one disc has an audio commentary from Figgis and
an isolated music score.
Menu :
A static and silent menu with options to start the film, select a scene or play the trailer.
I watched this film hoping to see something new, not just a standard affair and Figgis
made such a good job of
Leaving Las Vegas
, so what
went wrong? Why did he choose this? Presumably we're meant to care about Max's situation
and his friends, particularly the dying Charlie but how are we supposed to care about an
actor that's spending more time behind bars these days than out of them?
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