Guardiões da Noite

A tale of the modern, the effect that it can make, on traditions and behaviours, that over years have formed a brake, as barriers are broken, with walls cascading down, lines are crossed, words go unspoken, the Armageddon clock counts down.

The Night Watch keep on searching, for those who overstep the mark, those who crawl out of the shadows, those who live their life in dark; they have visions of the horrors, that may take the world to hell, using seers that they've discovered, a contemporary show and tell.

Anton finds more than he bargained for when hunting down a cursed doctor who is about to bring calamity and chaos reigning down on everything and all.

"Night Watch" is one of the most expensive Russian film production ever and enjoyed in it's home country the best movie start of all time (15 million US $ in its first month), but is it any good? Yes and no. First of all, let me say that this is a special effects film and even though for a Russian production this has a comparatively huge budget for CGI and makeup f/x, the results are decidedly mixed. Most of it is OK, with single drops into the ridiculous. The direction by former ad director Bekmambetov is stylish enough, without forgetting to portray the grittiness of Russian life circumstances. The actors are competent, though leading man Konstantin Khabensky is lacking in the charisma department. The story ultimately is the measurement of what is good and bad about "Night Watch" and it does contain both. The novels, on which this film is based, are pretty complex, making this the first in a trilogy, with "Day Watch" and "Dusk Watch" to come. The presented battle between good and evil supernatural beings is reminiscent of other genre efforts, but unlike, say "Underworld", "Night Watch" takes its elements seriously. This is a mixed blessing. On one hand you have a real mythology underlying events instead of a starting point for subway machine gun battles of longhairs, on the other there is no humor in the picture and the reverent and dead serious tone in spite of the bizarre events is sometimes overdone and a little laughable. The idea of supernatural police forces observing and checking each other is a nice one, as are numerous quirky little ideas, but overall there are two lame stereotypes for every good and fresh idea. Most disappointing is the double climax letdown. The 'grudge' storyline is extremely well built up with lots of suspense but ends with a whimper instead of a bang. The climax of the 'kid' storyline is muddled as well, but does offer a nice full circle resolution to one aspect of the story and features an interesting cliffhanger.

Overall, the shortcomings are (just slightly) outweighed by a fresh, different and decidedly un-Hollywood take on fantasy movie standards. This is an interesting and worthy effort, though strictly for fans of the fantasy/mystery genre.

6/10

Hundred of years ago, the forces of light and darkness faced each other in a very violent battle on a bridge. In order to avoid the total slaughter, their leaders agree to have an armistice. Along the centuries, the two balanced sides are divided and the forces of light watch and control the vampires, a.k.a. as the forces of night. Among the humans lives "The Others", i.e., persons with supernatural powers including witches, sorcerers and vampires and with the free will to choose which side to join. The legend says that the two forces will be unbalanced by "The Great Other", and the side this powerful being selects will win the battle. In 1992, in Moscow, Anton Gorodetsky (Konstantin Khabensky) joins the forces of the light while hiring a witch for a black magic. In the present days, he faces the consequences of his act.

"Nochnoy Dozor" is an original and refreshing dark tale of the eternal battle in the world, between the good and the evil. The unpredictable story has great special effects and is very engaging, and it is interesting to see how the distinction between good and evil is actually very blurred in the present days. Unfortunately I found the screenplay very confused in spite of having understood the whole plot. Maybe watching a second time, this movie may be better and better. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Guardiões da Noite" ("Guardians of the Night")

I enjoyed this movie quite a lot; if you are into Jeunet-type fantasy, I would recommend that you see it. Overall, I would give it a rating of 7 out of 10. The reason for the Jeunet comparison (e.g. Delicatessen, City of Lost Children) is that it has the same dark antiutopian/surrealistic ambiance to it, and is very imaginative. It is also very elaborate in its style, which lends most of the appeal to the movie. This being said, the biggest disappointment of the movie is the plot, which is overly straightforward and simple-minded, but at least it does not devolve into some technical meaningless psycho-babble as many Hollywood fantasy movies do, and maintains its fairy-tale quality.

It is unfortunate that modern Russian cinematography seems to be chasing the success of Hollywood (which is ironic, given the country's negative attitude towards US in general and Hollywood in particular), but this movie benefits from Hollywood-style special effects, and is free of annoying clichés (unlike the atrociously pretentious "Barber of Siberia" - another recent style-heavy Russian blockbuster; sorry Mikhalkov).

To sum up, this movie is quite original, imaginative, stylish and at times visually stunning, which in my book constitutes success, but don't expect any depth of ideas.

With just over a $4 M budget, you would think there's only so much that a sci-fi/fantasy film can accomplish, but "Night Watch" proves exception with its well-imagined and executed effects courtesy the creative mind of Timur Bekmambetov. The style of the film alone helps to cover up the weak structure of the script.

"Night Watch," based on the novel by Sergei Lukyanenko, is sort of an anthropomorphic imagining of good versus evil, where good/light and evil/darkness are manifested as special individuals called "Others" who have been at peace since a truce long ago that said all would be able to choose freely between good or evil. Naturally there needs to be means of enforcing this truce, so there's a Night Watch (good guys) and a Day Watch (bad guys) who make sure both sides play nice. This of course becomes a lot harder with a prophecy suggesting someone will come along and his/her choice will throw off the balance forever. It's really a classic sci-fi "secret supernatural beings living among humans fighting a war of sorts" premise.

From the get-go, this movie is hard to follow. That concept gets presented fairly quickly and the script doesn't really give us any extra help in understanding who is what. It's hard to tell who is on what side and why and it hurts the film throughout whether its the lack of connection felt to the characters or that you're fighting just to get it the whole time that you have trouble appreciating much else.

Also important to know is that this film is not action-oriented. Although there are fight scenes, these are hardly action sequences as a moviegoer exposed to Western action movies might define them. It's more of a thriller story with lots of special effects and creative editing to bring the secret world of good vs. evil to life.

Bekmambetov is the key to making this movie work. He realizes that with the right editing techniques, anything low budget can still come across effectively. One early shot of the main character Anton taking out a vampire combines a little bit of special effects, illusion and make-up, but it is filmed in quick sequence that makes it all appear simultaneous like it is a CGI effect. It's creative thinking (and a few slow motion shots too).