Nightride

Nightride promises to take you on a ride, which it does; a bumpy one, filled with detours and ennui-inducing stretches.

Happily, the screenplay is a model of design and economy. The dilemmas remain clear. The solutions mostly make sense.

Nightride doesn’t try to reinvent the (car) wheel, nor does it really pretend to be anything more than it is. Fingleton shows us what he can do, so it’s efficient vehicle in the end. Like the audience, it knows where it is going. It all depends on whether those on board like the cut of its chassis.

There’s a propulsive, driving force to the way the film is directed, but there are some things that don’t entirely track.

The one-take gimmick — much easier to achieve now thanks to digital cameras —has become common enough that it barely qualifies as novel.