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The Worst Film Ever

Sadly Over-hyped

Please don't spend money on this.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I find it _extremely difficult to watch a movie or TV program filmed in false color.The 'sepia' tint of 'journey to the end of the night' _immediately convinced me I wasn't interested in the plot. When I walk out into my backyard every morning I see 'roy g. biv' colors provided by the Sun and expect to see those same natural colors in everything I view.I think its a toss-up between CSI and the 'Matrix' movies for the advent of 'green' tinted filming which apparently provided the 'idea' for the red-shifted 'sepia' distraction in 'journey'.It doesn't matter which filters directors and film editors use, its _still not real.Raise your hand if you wondered why CSI's in Las Vegas walked out of _broad daylight into a house (crime scene) and _immediately turned on their _ever available hand-held flashlights rather than turn on the lights in a room ,or even _better, raise the shades.Trying to set 'mood' with false color and 'shading' should have criminal charges attached.

In a dark and decadent area of São Paulo, the exiled Americans Sinatra (Scott Glenn) and his son Paul (Brendan Fraser) own a brothel. Paul is a compulsive gambler addicted in cocaine and his father is married with the former prostitute Angie (Catalina Sandino Moreno), and they have a little son. When a client is killed by his wife in their establishment, they find a suitcase with drugs. In the night that they have scheduled a negotiation with African buyers, their African liaison dies while having sex with the travesty Nazda (Matheus Nachtergaele). Sinatra proposes to the Nigerian dishwasher of the brothel, Wemba (Mos Def), to travel to the harbor of Santos, close the business with the drug dealers and in return he would receive a large amount. Wemba accepts but while returning to his car in the harbor, he is attacked by two smalltime thieves and passes out. His lack of contact with Sinatra and Paul leads to a sequence of misunderstandings with a tragic end."Journey to the End of the Night" is a movie about losers that have a second chance in life, but waste it along a night of entwined mistakes. None of the characters is totally evil, they are ambiguous and develop a sort of empathy with the viewer. Scott Glenn plays an owner of a brothel, but also a family man concerned with the future of his son. The addicted and violent character of Brendan Fraser has a deep trauma from his childhood. Angie, played by Catalina Sandino Moreno, is divided between Sinatra and Paul. Wemba, played by Mos Def, is a simple honest worker that accepts to participate in a dirty business to raise easy money. The excellent Brazilian actor Matheus Nachtergaele performs a travesty in a key role. Watching this film somehow I slightly recalled "After Hours", a comedy of errors in New York. The lighting uses weird colors (yellow, red, green) and together with the bad weather, highlights the underworld of a poor and dark area in the cold São Paulo, in a film-noir style. The story is predictable, there are many coincidences, but I liked this movie. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "12 Horas Até o Amanhecer" ("12 Hours Until Dawn")

A Director Searching for his Signature, March 3, 2007 Reviewer: Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviewsFor those of us who found much to admire and appreciate in Eric Eason's 2002 little powerhouse of a film MANITO that placed Franky G in the limelight as a sound actor inside that hunky exterior, the release of JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT held much promise. Unfortunately with moving into the arena of 'major features' with popular big actors in a script that is deeply in need of surgery proves a step too quickly taken. While it is easy to see Eason's intentions in this very dark (literally!) film, it is compulsively doctored with phony 'reality ideas' that misfire.The basic story is a family of Americans who are deeply involved in the crime scene (brothels) of São Paulo, Brazil, intricately bound in their crime acts but both planning to escape the quagmire of the dingy life of the city and return to America. The father Sinatra (Scott Glenn) is living with Angie (Catalina Sandino Moreno - the star of 'Maria Full of Grace') and they have a small child: Sinatra's son Paul (Brendan Fraser) is also in love with Angie and plans an escape from the dregs of Sao Paulo after he manages to work a drug pass engineered by his father. The sale is to Nigerians who speak Yoruba and when the 'messenger' meant to pass the drugs for the money abruptly dies in a brothel with a transgender prostitute, the panic begins: who can make the pass that night? Sinatra hires a Nigerian, Yoruba speaking dishwasher Wemba (Mos Def) who agrees to take the drugs to the drop site and it seems Wemba is the only decent character to keep his bargain and his word. Paul is enraged with the death of the original middleman and ends up disfiguring the prostitute present at his death. The drug deal falls into problems, Paul is unable to convince Angie to stand by him (which mean leaving Paul's father and the possible endangerment of her son), and things bog down plot-wise so that story ultimately ends with the only persons to care about are Angie and Wemba.Eason makes his story all happen in one night and the constant factor is a greenish darkness that hides almost everything - and that may be a good thing! The script is Swiss cheese, the acting is for the most part sadly directed, the cast is poorly chosen, and the only real redeeming factor is the chance to watch Mos Def continue to flesh out his career with well executed character roles. Eric Eason holds much promise as a director (he was the awarded best emerging filmmaker by first annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in 2002), so perhaps this excursion into the 'big screen realm' can be forgiven as overstepping his material. In the end JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT is hopefully just a sidestep for a director who obviously has considerable talent. Grady Harp

"Journey to the End of the Night" defies any instant classification. It touches on many genres and plays more like an amalgamation of films. The effect is wonderful and stirring and by the end of the movie you feel like you've been on an emotional roll-coaster. The plot is plain. Brendan Fraser is in love with his father's wife. He wants to run away with her and start over in a new country. Brendan has no respect for the old man because he is essentially a pimp -- (Scot Glen owns a nightclub where girls sell themselves). One night a man is "offed" in the club and leaves behind a bounty of drugs. Scot Glen and Brendan decide to sell the drugs rather than hand it over to the cops -- (Scot Glen has his own designs about starting over and getting out of the business). They enlist the help of one of their lowly employees (Mos Def) whom they know very little about. Only that he is Nigerian and that he can speak the same language of their buyer. Mos Def embarks on his mission which takes on a heroic, almost mythic resonance in one of the most humanistic, gentle roles I have ever observed. He progress is derailed by random violence which leaves him without his cell phone to call Scot Glen and Brendan Fraser (who now believe that Mos Def has absconded with the cash).Scot Glen in an act of desperation visits an old Fortune Teller to try to enlist his powers in finding Mos Def. Brendan Fraser begins to panic because his plan on getting away is beginning to unravel.Mos Def is rescued, as it were, by a beautiful young maiden (Alice Braga) who--because of a fight with her boyfriend--is lost in the world with no where to go.Mos Def and Alice team up for a heartbreaking and tragic passage back to the city. We see that despite some affinities there love is not to be. Meanwhile, back at the club Brendan Fraser stews over the missing drug mule, and begins to melt down. He confronts his father in brilliant "actorly" moment that redeems his character. We find through classic monologue why he is the way he is (And Fraser does some of his greatest work in this scene).The ending of "Journey to the End of the Night" borders on the fantastical and is wildly ambitious. Perhaps overly so and perhaps not entirely convincing. But no less great. The film is chocked filled with energy and passion, bloodshed, car chases, shoot outs, and moments of supreme gentleness. Not for the squeamish. This film is going to become a cult classic.