O Vingador da Noite

An ex-investigative journalist can't sleep – he walks the street as a vigilante, taking on cases. He is driven by the murder of his wife and daughter years before and uses his martial arts skill to fight crime. When he finds a new drug Instant Iron creating crime, he is hired to stop the supply. Coincidentally a young girl hires him to find her father, a chemist, who may have been kidnapped to make more of the drug for criminals – does this connect to the man who murdered his wife?

I hate most TVM's. I especially hate those that are only designed to become cheap TV shows. This was clearly one of those – th plot sets up all the elements the producers wanted for the series, a love interest, a bar room friend with whom he has a shady past, a revenge story line, a criminal nemesis to wheel out regularly and some sort of semi-super powers. Unfortunately they forgot to add any type of spark – this is evident from the credits where we see the director is…oh dear…Alan Smithee.

The plot is lazy and predictable, the action is worst. The film is dull throughout and it's little wonder no-one picked it up. It's not helped by having cardboard cut out Adrian Paul in the lead role – can't he act at all – there's nothing funnier in the whole film than seeing him wailing to the sky in despair after the loss of his kid! Brian Thompson (X-files' Alien Bounty Hunter) is OK but the rest are as bad as Paul.

There's nothing to like here, the film is lazy and poor in every area. It's dull and even Adrian Paul seems to think he's better than this – and if HE looks down his nose at something then you know it'' gotta stink.

For lovers of bad TV and film this really pushes the boundaries of what a human mind can take.

I shall not attempt to describe the full indignity of the film - rather a few select moments, in particular the two 10 minute montages of a silent Highlander Man (adrien Paul?) working out/watching his family dying/stalking the streets (all to a terribly bad, sub-yann hammer synth soundtrack). So bad that by the 6th time you see his wife and daughter get blown up, you wish you had been with them, if only to save the sweet misery of seeing the Owl re-live his dull montage again and again.

Indeed as we cross the half-hour mark, humour turns to revulsion as we realise that this is a serious piece of work, so bad that the director removed their name from his hateful and yet unintentionally hilarious movie.

I mean the central villain 'raps' all of his dialogue for god sake!! How could I sit through this? How will you sit through this? Well, like some horrible accident once you begin to watch it you won't be able to take your eyes from the screen.

However I warn you, the Owl is not for the casual viewer - if it comes on TV and you can survive the full hour then you can consider yourself one of the lucky ones, as many will have fallen where you now stand (probably weeping).

this film was truly awful, it was a mess, I can see why it was credited to Alan Smithee, the fictional name of a director of a film when no one wants to take responsibility for a film.

main character, the Owl, you are subjected th flashbacks which went on for up to 10 minutes, replaying the car explosion that killed his wife and daughter....we got it the first time, yes we know why you're tortured and out for vengeance.

these flashbacks also include scenes of him doing his martial arts training....again they laboured the point.

One of the baddies is a rapping gangster who gets one of his henchmen to play his ghetto blaster so that he can rap his dialogue...and truly awful rapping it was.

And you hardly see the real baddie, except in this repeated flashback scene when he is driving away from the explosion

the little girl...typical american girl....you want her to die...

it went on for way too long...

and you find yourself watching it to see how bad it can get, and it never disappoints you...

I saw a bit of this film just once. It has haunted me for a very long time, I have failed in all my attempts to find it. I can identify with the hero since I'm writing this at 5:00 in the morning.

Great hero concept, but since I didn't see the whole thing I can't say more

"The Owl" was a proposed pilot that was not picked up by any network. Oddly, the makers of this show did something unique...they released a longer version in theaters in Europe after it bombed with the networks in order to recoup some of their expenses.

'The Owl' is a man who apparently doesn't sleep much and spends his nights dispensing justice as needed. In many ways, he acts like The Equalizer or Renegade or The Saint....but is much less prone to talking and more into punching and kicking. I am glad he didn't talk much, as when others (especially the baddies) did, I felt like tossing my remote at the TV. Yes, the dialog was THAT bad. What was also just horrible was the macho and highly formulaic fight at the end...uggh!

The bottom line is that after watching it, I could see why the series was never made. Had they made the hero less grunty and more like a real human being, it might have worked. And, had they made villains who seemed real in any way, that, too would have helped!

By the way, I learned from this show is that if you have a bullet-proof coat, baddies with machine guns will only shoot the coat...never the unprotected head or hands. Imagine...opening up on him at close range and never once hitting his head!