Overnight Plus The Boondock Saints DVD Review:

Overnight is a shining example of what happens when ego far outweighs talent. The documentary charts the rise to fame and power of Troy Duffy, and then grimly details his spiralling fall into obscurity. Duffy could have had it all, but due to a particular personality fault (being an asshole), managed to alienate and annoy not just his family and friends, but more importantly the people who could have made him a success.

At the beginning of 1997, after Tarantino’s dramatic entrance on to the screen, studios went into overdrive and there was a frenzy in which lots of ‘edgy’ independent scripts were bought. Blue collar barman Troy Duffy rode the crest of this wave and became, for a while, the luckiest man in Hollywood.

Harvey Weinstein, Chairman of Miramax films, and possibly the most important person in Hollywood, hotfooted it down to the West Hollywood bar, J Sloan’s, where Duffy worked to offer him $250,000 for his script, The Boondock Saints, the chance for his band, the Brood, to write and perform the soundtrack and the cherry on top – he bought the bar Duffy worked in for him.

With this sudden success, Duffy asked two J Sloan regulars, Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith, who also co-managed the Brood, to document his meteoric rise to fame and announced to the world ‘I’m Hollywood’s new hard-on’.

Unfortunately, as the Goldman quote at the end suggests, ‘fame is a kind of truth drug’, and, unluckily for Duffy, this drug showed his to be an abusive, egotistical megalomaniac.

The documentary shows his celebrations, him meeting various celebrities (including Mark Wahlberg), then the sudden fall from film mogul to no-one. This happens due to a falling out with Miramax – the reason for which isn’t explained in the film, although it’s easy to see why Weinstein had second thoughts – Duffy got impatient waiting for production to begin and started using and abusing Weinstein’s name all over Hollywood – not the done thing. And with proclamations like ‘We have a deep cesspool of creativity’ and ‘The line of ass-kissers is getting longer everyday’, and shouting at his assistant ‘Get me De Niro on the phone!’ maybe Harvey was getting a little embarrassed about the protégé he snapped up without much thought.

When Miramax drop him, Duffy struggles to find someone else to make his film, but he does get it filmed in the end. The basic plot is that two Irish guys believe they’re on a mission from God and go around the underworld of Boston, killing everyone they think is evil. It’s a sub-standard indy flick with bad accents and William Dafoe at his most ridiculous, yet it’s strangely watchable – mainly because, after watching the documentary, you want to see what all the fuss was about. It is a good move to finally release the two films as a package – they are two parts of the same jigsaw.

The Boondock Saints was released in a few cinemas but did poorly. It was more popular as a cult film on VHS and DVD, but Duffy signed away his rights to make any profit from that. His band were also dropped from their label and at the end you see Duffy, paranoid that Miramax are trying to kill him, working with his brother on a decorating job. He still hasn’t directed his second feature.

In Overnight, as he fights to get a portion of what he was originally promised, you see Duffy abuse and offend Montana and Smith (and everyone else), and find yourself wishing him to fail. The fact that he does so on such a huge scale is truly satisfying. This is schadenfreude at it’s most spectacular.

Special features:
- Deleted scenes – including scenes of the band celebrating their success, the bands reaction to Troy getting arrested for drink driving and one of a script reading with William Dafoe.
- Theatrical trailer
- Alternate ending – rubbish ending with filmmaker answering kids’ questions in a classroom.
- Mark Brian Smith and Troy Montana interview on Back stage with Barry Nolan – interesting as it gives more background about the directors and Duffy – shows what an ordeal the project was for Montana and Smith.
- Scene selection

Overnight:
The Boondock Saints:

Sian Thatcher