I first saw an advertisement for Nightwatch on the back of a magazine in February of 1997, it said at the bottom "Coming Soon". I was quite excited, as I am with anything Ewan McGregor is in. Well, 14 months later, guess what decides to waltz into the theatres, accompanied by 0 promotion and little warning.
Was, as the newspaper ad declared on its release date, this "suspense.. worth the wait"? Well, frankly, no. It wasn't bad mind you, but it wasn't 14 months of post-production good either. It is clever, it is engaging, and at times, yes, suspenseful. But it's also got some major loopholes that you can stick your head through and say high.
Ewan McGregor is your average college law student (complete with American accent), high expectations, full of booze, and low on cash. He takes a job as a night watchman in the autopsy/morgue area of the local hospital to help support himself. If the job itself isn't eerie enough, he's expected to do rounds every hour in which he must insert a key into a time box to ensure that he's doing his job. One of the key places is the coldroom of the morgue itself, where there's strings above every body, which, he's told by his precursor, in case they're not dead, they pull and it sends a warning up to the night watchman.
This freaks him out and he spend his first few shifts intently staring at the warning light. One night he meets the local detective as the police bring in the most recent victim of the local mass murderer. The detective is a weird fellow and almost enjoys talking about the gory details with the now paranoid night watchman.
Not soon after a series of weird events happen, as first the warning light goes off, and next the watchman, during his rounds, finds the most recent murder victim has been removed from the morgue and found sitting up in the hall.
Also coming into the tale is McGregor's best friend who has become quite the thrillseeker, and drags him into his twisted need for excitement. After a series of more strange events occur, including a dead hooker and the violation of a murder victim in the morgue, McGregor becomes suspect for the murderer. Knowing his innocence, and also knowing a great amount of detail of the murder case, the watchman tries to solve the case himself, but only puts himself into more danger.
There are some intense scenes in the film, good mood establishment, and some somewhat clever twists and turns, but overall Nightwatch doesn't have enough to make it stand out among the many suspense films from the past decade. McGregor doesn't pull off his American accent too well (losing it completely whenever he has to yell), and Nick Nolte is too dry as the police chief. A great performer of eccentric characters, Brad Dourif wasn't used enough - or very much at all - in the film (but that didn't stop them from making him one of the suspects). And of course there were some rather obscene loopholes (you'll know them if you see the film). Worthwile if there's nothing better at the video counter.