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Pretty Good

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Crime reporter Porter Wren (Adrien Brody) is married to doctor Lisa (Jennifer Beals) with two kids. He attends a party thrown by publishing tycoon Hobbs where he is enticed by Caroline Crowley (Yvonne Strahovski). Her dead filmmaker husband Simon (Campbell Scott) was found buried under some rubble. She recruits him into investigating his death while they have a fling. He gets pulled into a search for Simon's lost videos that he often takes secretly.This is trying to be a neo-noir. It has the murder mystery, the femme fatale, and the protagonist narration. It doesn't have all the stylistic markers. The shakey indie style camera moves clash with the needed clean cut neo-noir style. Normally, they play hard with shadows and crisp contrast. Brody is fine as the compromised antagonist. Strahovski has the beauty but her darkness lacks edge. There's not much to the plot. Obviously, the horse story should be much more profound. It should be hinted at every other moment. It should be connected more directly to the present day story. It may help to have her stepfather still involved. Almost everything needs a bit of an upgrade other than Brody.

I'll admit, this one's a little baffling. "Manhattan Night" has all of your usual noir clichés and a generally melancholy vibe, but it is far from a nail-biter. There is a point, late in the game, where things actually do heat up, but it is a genuine challenge getting there. And this is a movie with more than one naked Yvonne Strahovski scene. That's criminal, man.The movie's worth it for the cast (Jennifer Beals is always an asset) and there is a payoff in the end, but I can't say I'll be coming back around for this anytime soon.5/10

Admittedly I am a fan of film noir and this is a first class example of the genre. Brody is fantastic as the ill-fated journalist who falls for the femme-fatale, wonderfully played by Yvonne Stahovski. I barely recognised Campbell Scott from Royal Pains, who has a juicy role as an enigmatic, if slightly off-kilter, film director.The plot is typically film noir, but there are some enthralling twists and added mysteries as Brody searches for the truth, becoming enmeshed in a web of twisted behaviour and dark secrets.If you've never seen a film noir, watch this. It's classy, well paced, entertaining and gripping. A fine story, well told.

"I'm always running to the place where the bad thing just happened, arriving just after the danger has passed, watching from a safe distance, searching for an angle, that little wrinkle, the kick to the heart that makes you want to put down the dollar and pick up the paper."After seeing two not so good films with Adrien Brody ("Backtrack" and "American Heist") I noticed that sad look of him on the cover of "Manhattan Night". It might sound weird, but every time I see Brody's facial expression on a cover, at once a sense of gloom and sadness overtakes me. Examine once again the cover from "Backtrack" and that of, lets say, "Wrecked". Every time you see a person filled with melancholy. With those sad puppy eyes and a grim facial expression. He stares at you with a helpless and beseeching look. The man exudes melancholy.Despite his distinctive physical traits, he reminded me of Jake Gyllenhaal hunting for sensational news in "Nightcrawler". The same profession, the same eagerness and the same melancholy look. The only major difference is that Porter Wren already had his victory moment in the past when a young girl was found after his journalistic work. Hence, he still takes care of a daily column in the New York Daily News. Even though the new owner of this newspaper isn't very enthusiastic about it. At first you might say that Porter is a boring and rational person. But then again, he hasn't taken Caroline Crowley (Yvonne Strahovski) into account. The moment he sees her at a party, he's lost and he becomes entangled in the seductive web of this blond vamp. Caroline's interest in Porter is also of a practical nature. She wants to use Porter's "Sherlock Holmes" skills to investigate the suspicious death of her husband Simon Crowley (Campbell Scott).You'll experience something similar like "Basic Instinct" with Brody acting as a sort of Poirot who's persistent in solving a case. In addition, he has to deal with a case of extortion, so the whole thing gets even more complicated. A story full of intrigue and erotically charged scenes. Brody's daily column is about other people's misery. It looks like he's becoming the main character in such a column. Although all my attention should be drawn to the stormy affair between Porter and Caroline and the complicated developments gripping Porter, my attention went to the rather extravagant personality of Crowley. A slightly deranged movie producer with some absurd traits. A real weirdo with a weird sense of humor. Such a person who pretends to having commit suicide after swallowing a large number of pills. And then he gets up calmly and says it was just a joke. And a highly attractive, breathtaking erotic blonde falls in love with such an eccentric who looks like a bum? Women are unfathomable and inapprehensible. But the acting of Campbell Scott was beyond dispute extremely brilliant.All in all not a bad movie. Not bad at all. But not a high flyer either. Turn it into a black and white film and you can place it between other Hollywood classics which are shown on a pay-per-view television-channel. It won't be noticed. You can call this film stylish though. "Manhattan Night" pretends to be a neo-noir film with a mystery build into. But in the end it isn't really mysterious. More reviews here : http://bit.ly/1KIdQMT