1-800-Hot-Nite (2022)

1-800-Hot-Nite (2022). 1-800-Hot-Nite: Directed by Nick Richey. With Dallas Dupree Young, Gerrison Machado, Mylen Bradford, Ali Richey. When 13-year-old Tommy loses his parents to a drug raid, he embarks on an urban odyssey guided by a phone sex operator (his fairy godmother) and with the help of his two best friends, Steve and O'Neill.

“1-800-HOTNITE is a bad movie, but at least it is an innocent badness, as the filmmakers, financiers and producers behind it that allowed this dud to move forward seem to be clueless about the basics of story telling, mis-en-scene, and movie making.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWe were looking forward to this film as traditionally the films at Deauville are of a certain high standard having premiered at other top-tier festivals prior to their Deauville stop. But Deauville for some reason made an exception here by choosing a film that is poorly written and directed, only made somewhat tolerable by up and coming Dallas Young who plays Tommy.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn 1-800-HOT-NITE, Tommy loses his father to a drug raid and then embarks on a night of improbable adventure that leaves the viewer feeling bored and frustrated. The story goes nowhere so it is hard to pay attention throughout but I did my best to hang in there till the end.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWriter and Director Nick Richey makes a lot of errors. For starters my husband and I still canu0026#39;t tell if the film is set in the 80u0026#39;s , 90u0026#39;s or in modern times because the lead character makes calls from old American telephone booths and corded land lines, and interacts with police driving old police cars, but the entire film feels like it is set at a time when phone booths are obsolete and everyone has a cell phone.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe dialog is either boring or pointless. For example, the characters comment on each otheru0026#39;s clothes with great emphasis even though there is absolutely nothing remarkable about their clothes. Perhaps the only line of dialog that is compelling in the film is itu0026#39;s title u0026quot;1-800-HOT-NITEu0026quot; as it sort of hooked us to check it out.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e1-800-HOT-NITE has the appearance of an amateur film that was made with dialog improvisation on set after characters are placed in situations that are unnatural. Tommy decides to collect money for some paper route (hello 90u0026#39;s again! Or maybe even 70u0026#39;s!) late at night and in cash, something that would most likely lead to nothing, but in Richeyu0026#39;s thoughtless script, this decision by Tommy triggers the most improbable responses from other characters who apparently are on Tommyu0026#39;s paper route that he somehow walks to door to door late into the night.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAre all these paper route characters all in one city block readily available to open their doors to Tommy to give him cash for a paper route after midnight? Or is Tommy able to teleport himself from one door to the next? I suppose any unbelievable occurrence is possible with a script that has no sense of time or place.”