La nuit se traîne

In the movie Night Call, Maddie is a student who works as a locksmith at night. One night, she goes to Claire, a mysterious woman, to open her apartment door. After helping Claire, Maddie realizes that Claire lied about her identity and deceived her. Following this incident, Maddie is unintentionally involved in a dangerous adventure in which she must prove her innocence during one night....

About the movie The movie Night Call is a French action thriller film directed by Michiel Blanchart in 2024. The movie Night Call stars Jonas Bloquet, Jonathan Feltre, Natacha Krief, and In the end, it was a very ordinary movie.

Wow... After seeing the trailer first, I was expecting a lot of this film. And I sure wasn't disappointed after seeing it.

I have to say, I've seen quite the Belgian blockbusters and hidden gems, as I collect them (as they are hard to find sometimes), but this one is up there among the best for me.

Non-stop brutal action scenes will come your way, well acted and super engaging from the start.

A simple yet clever story that delivers in a very realistic way, without trying to be anything else.

Apart from... - maybe - the very end.

The ending felt somewhat anticlimactic, given the progression of the story, and they did put in a tiny little political stance. However, it didn't make the main story fall short in any way, but I wasn't sure what to think of the ending as it was.

Overall, a solid 9/10.

Or is it bad call? No pun intended either way. For a first time feature length movie this really is well done. Especially the camera work (be it a car chase or a foot chase ... the movement of the camera is really one of the stars - if not the star of it all.

On the other hand this has quite a few issues with logic. And I mean the internal logic of the movie. As in what it tells us and what it shows us. There is a situation where one person could shoot another person .... which obviously would end the movie prematurely. There are other things that would make sense, but the pace of the movie likely helps you not to overthink the whole thing ... life matters ... and your own even more than others. So social commentary? A little for sure ... but is more interested in telling a suspenseful story ... than anything else.

Night Call is a taut, well-shot, well-acted action thriller that's also the first feature film by Belgian director Michiel Blanchart. It's honestly hard to believe that it's his first film-this carries the tension of a Safdie Brothers thriller, and the action is slick, realistic, and superbly executed (fully taking place at night). Blanchart cites Duel, Training Day, and Collateral as inspirations. For an actioner, Night Call also deserves praise for actually bothering to develop its lead characters (and their respective arcs) and set it against the backdrop of a BLM protest. Great performances from its core cast-Jonathan Feltre (Mady), Natacha Krief (Claire), Jonas Bloquet (Theo), and Romain Duris (Yannick). There are some clichés too, such as the "big bad villain in a suit", a car chase that ends in a crash, etcetera. But that doesn't stop it from being one of the most impressive directorial debuts in recent times.

Since a short while now - several years - this kind of French spoken actionners are only available on streaming platforms, certainly not released in movie theaters. The main surprise here is Romain Duris as the villain; as also was Frank Gastambide in CARJACKERS or Jalil Lespert in GT MAX. French actors for whom the villain roles was a premiere...I love this. Here the movie is riveting, very well made you always wonder where the story leads you to. It is a crime film, not a drama, or crime drama. But you have films better than this one, French - Belgian here - actionners, which, I repeat, are straight to streaming platforms. Curious and unexpected ending.