Search - Overnight on DVD

Portrait of a blow-hard

David Bonesteel | Fresno, CA United States | 06/18/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Troy Duffy was on the fast-track to become a Hollywood legend-while working as a bartender, he sold a screenplay to Miramax head Harvey Weinstein, got permission to direct it, and secured a recording deal for his band. Unfortunately for himself, Duffy was an egotistical control freak who insisted on claiming all the glory and credit for the good things that happened to him and assigning blame for all of the bad. This documentary chronicles his downfall as he disrespects and mistreats nearly everyone he encounters, ultimately losing all of his great opportunities.

When I first heard about this film, I wondered if anyone whose actions don't affect the public really deserves this kind of treatment. I was also leery about the honesty of the filmmakers; after all, you could probably make anybody look bad with selective editing. I still have some reservations, but after having seen the film, it's kind of hard to see how they could have edited it to make him look good. He makes some stunningly unkind statements to people to whom he claims to be loyal and seems to revel in the chance to put others down and force them to acknowledge his "superiority."

This film serves as a cautionary tale about how not to treat people. I imagine that Duffy will see this film someday if he hasn't already. I wonder if being an observer will allow him to see his responsibility for his own downfall, or if he continues to see himself as the genius auteur who was brought down by foolish hangers-on and duplicitous studio people.
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The Treasure of Obnoxious Bilious

M. JEFFREY MCMAHON | Torrance, CA USA | 04/25/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The documentary Overnight chronicles the manner in which Troy Duffy, hyped-up screenwriter of The Boondock Saints, behaves like a malignant bully toward his buddies, his agents, and his producers. Duffy sees himself as a working-class hero whose genius was discovered by the right people. But what we see, contrary to Duffy, is an overgrown shrieking infant seething with megalomaniacal tantrums, self-aggrandizing fantasies, and paranoid delusions who, alienating everyone, sees himself as an innocent victim. One is tempted to think that the promise of wealth turned him into such a bilious, obnoxious lout, like those characters turned rotten in The Treasure of Sierra Madre. But at the end of the documentary we are given a deliciously insightful quote from Albert Goldman, which sets the record straight:

"No man is really changed by success. What happens is that success works on the man's personality like a truth drug, bringing him out of the closet and revealing...what was always inside his head.""

The Art of Self-Assassination

R. W. Rasband | Heber City, UT | 04/15/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Overnight" is one of the most hilarious movies you will see in many a moon, but only if you are a devotee of "schadenfreude", that is, the spectacle of a royal jerk getting what he richly deserves. It's amazing how little self-knowledge some people have; apparently novice filmmaker Troy Duffy had no idea how megalomanical and obnoxious he came off to other people. This DVD really does restore your faith that some justice does exist.

There are a couple of mysteries that the film leaves unanswered. One is why Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein dropped Duffy in the first place; another is whether Harvey really did blacklist Duffy's film, "The Boondock Saints". There is an interview with a "Washington Post" reporter who describes Harvey's reactions. Some more interviews with some objective sources, or with Harvey himself, might have added some needed perspective. As it is, "Overnight" is a richly subjective look at the art of self-sabotage. Troy Duffy learned a harsh lesson: you can only act like that in Hollywood after you have made a hit film; not before."

King of Kings

Mr. A. Pomeroy | Wiltshire, England | 02/05/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Yes, it's a portrait of Troy Duffy. But what's it like as a film? The answer is that it's only so-so. Troy is a fascinating subject, but the film has almost no context, and it goes on too long. It has a similar setup to that 9/11 documentary, in the sense that the film-makers - friends of Duffy, in the sense that Beast Man was a 'friend' of Skeletor - were originally going to make a straightforward documentary about an up-and-coming director, but disaster intervened and the film-makers ended up making a good egg out of a bad chicken.

You will notice that all the other reviews are actually about Troy, they are not really about the film. The film-makers have not made any other films, and although Overnight has nothing overtly wrong with it, it doesn't really tell us about anything except Troy Duffy. We learn almost nothing about the film he is making, a film which I have not seen, and have no desire to see. A top-quality documentary would have tried to put Troy into context - how did he get a film deal? How was he different from the other, similar, post-Tarantino movie brats such as Gary Fleder ("Things to do in Denver when you're dead") or Alan Taylor ("Palookaville") or a dozen others? Granted, those people are still working today, mostly in TV or direct-to-DVD, whereas Troy is not working at all, and so Troy must have been unusually crap, but it's hard to tell how unusually crap he must have been from the documentary.

The key thing for me is that, although Troy comes across as mindbendingly loud and profane, I was under the impression that all Hollywood producers and directors were like that. It is as if Troy is acting out a part that he has learned from watching documentaries about Hollywood film producers; for someone who had never directed or written a film before, he nonetheless manages to recover from a major setback (Miramax dumps him) and assemble a cast and direct a film which is released. That's more than I have done. We learn very little about this process - how did Troy make the film? Why did people put up with him? If he is capable of alienating his own brother, how did he direct actors? How come Willem Dafoe - an actor with a career - did not tell him to pip off? What stopped Billy Connolly from punching him out?

Troy is like R Lee Ermey in "Full Metal Jacket", in that he is a monster, but he is an entertaining and engaging monster. Eventually he becomes tiring, although there are a couple of memorably extended tirades (he is at his worst on the telephone), and the ending almost leaves you feeling sorry for him. He does have an odd charisma, and at the very least he gives the impression that he knows what he is doing. I can understand why people might follow him, even though he is not a Good King. The documentary leaves me wondering firstly what happened to Troy, and secondly how has Overnight itself affected his career? I only knew he existed because of this documentary, I imagine film producers are fully aware of it. I also wonder why the filmmakers themselves have done nothing since, not even on cable television."