Le tueur de la nuit

Writing & Directing sounds fun, but you control too much. You are blind to your own weaknesses without checks. This is why it takes a team to make a film.

Story is definitely dark, & the tone is appropriately dark.

However, much of the film is so dark it's not watchable. Pivotal scenes. I changed the settings on my very good TV to brighten up as much as possible. Didn't help enough. No idea what was happening in a few scenes.

Well told true story with a couple twists & turns. But there's too much dialogue in light scenes, & too much action in dark scenes.

One ominous note underscores nonstop from start to end.

Lou Diamond Phillips delivers as usual. Good performances, just a bit overshadowed by bad production decisions.

Lou Diamond Phillips gives a Brilliant and mesmerizing performance as Ramirez "The Night Stalker". It's a wonderfully sustained characterization, and deserves probably more attention that it will get. In truth it's an award winning performance and should be remembered at the time Emmy's are distributed. Unfortunately the female role is nowhere near as interesting. Whether this is a fault of the writer, director or the actress, she just seems so much less interesting than Phillips.

But Phillip's performance is so good, h never stoops to the obvious and makes no effort to ingratiate himself or the part he's playing. I have never been a particular fan of his, but no I will pay more attention.

It's 2013. Kit (Bellamy Young) needs to get a confession from imprisoned killer Richard Ramirez (Lou Diamond Phillips) in San Quentin to exonerate her client scheduled to be executed in Texas in four days. Ramirez is a Satanist with fans, one of them being his adoring wife. There are flashbacks to teen Kit during the Night Stalker paranoia in the 1985 Los Angeles area as well as Ramirez's troubled life.

LDP has a good scraggly serial killer vibe but the interviews lack the scary horror intensity. The flashback structure doesn't allow for greater tension. Kit's journey does have a nice reveal but it may work better if the journey starts with a closer relationship to her client. The movie is simply missing something.

Lou Diamond Phillips is Chilling and Brilliant in this account of the serial killer, Richard Ramirez aka The Night Stalker. Bellamy Young was miscast in her role opposite him. She is a very good actress but paled in comparison to her costar. She just seemed flat in their interactions which was a shame. If she had even tried to muster some intensity or strength, it would have made all the difference. Her character who was supposed to be a smart but slightly damaged lawyer, just came off as weak. The supporting cast was brilliant especially the young boy and man who played younger Richard. They not only looked exactly right but were fabulous in the part. The only thing that was troubling was the script which I felt was too sympathetic towards Ramirez.

The guy(s) who play Ramirez, both young and old, are pretty damn good. They don't quite glorify the man. The actor portrays a melodramatic vainglorious narcissist who is full of his own self-importance, intelligent but not the genius he imagines himself to be. That pretty much seems like the real Ramirez you see in interviews. The back-story is pretty accurate in terms of what happened in Ramirez's life. This isn't enough though to save it.

It was the chapter parts with the female lawyer that were kind of irritating. Found myself asking repeatedly "what does this have to do with Ramirez? She is in the park playing on the swing with her boyfriend - why!?!? And, um, she slept all night with her hand restrained in a leather cuff? Really. I get they are trying to give her character complexity and depth, ie "she has a dark side too!" but who cares, the movie is not called "Sexually Confused Female Lawyer", it is called "The Night Stalker".

The interview parts were like an attempt at a poor man's "Clarice vs Hannibal Lecter", not sure the point - the scenes were not as compelling or intelligent or insightful as the script writers or directors intended them to be. Boring stuff. Kept thinking "get on with it already".

I'm getting more convinced with time that there'll never be a better serial killer than (the original) Henry: portrait of a serial killer. They did that on a shoestring budget too.

The "Born to Kill" documentary on Ramirez is far more chilling (and insightful) than this film, but I hope it can serve as a break for Lou Diamond Phillips, he is a talent.