It's fascinating, formulaic and full of intrigue but what's most seductive about this glossy thriller is its preoccupation with the peculiarities of its characters, its sense of style and the fact that it absolutely oozes atmosphere. Adhering to almost every main characteristic of classic film noir and unfolding at a very natural pace, it quickly develops a rather mesmeric quality that beautifully complements the strangeness of the developments and revelations that follow and ultimately propel "Manhattan Night" through to its surprising conclusion.
New York City tabloid columnist Porter Wren (Adrien Brody) spends his days seeking out the kind of scandalous or human interest stories that he knows have the potential to boost his newspaper's circulation. Although he's remarkably successful at what he does, he can't help feeling depressed about the way in which the advent of the digital age has diminished the influence and respect that the printed media once enjoyed. He's also convinced that he's "an endangered species" and mostly finds it hard to conceal his natural pessimism about the way that things have developed.
After his newspaper is taken over by the ruthless media mogul Sebastian Hobbs (Steven Berkoff), Porter is instructed to attend a reception to meet the new owner. This meeting turns out to be extremely brief and humiliating but what makes the evening far more memorable is his first meeting with the beautiful Caroline Crowley (Yvonne Strahovski). She turns out to be the widow of a world famous film director who died in mysterious circumstances and whose body was discovered buried in the rubble of a demolished building. As the following police investigation had failed to produce any answers, she asks Porter to investigate and successfully tempts him into an affair.
Porter soon discovers that Simon Crowley (Campbell Scott) was a deeply eccentric character who was a searcher for the truth and often abusive in his relationship with Caroline. He was also an inveterate maker of short video recordings, each of which he kept as a single source of the truth and Caroline urges Porter to begin his investigation by looking for any clues that these videos might contain. Surprisingly, Sebastian Hobbs, who has become aware of Porter and Caroline's affair, discloses that he's being blackmailed to prevent the contents of a certain video card from being made public and demands that Porter recover the offending video without delay. Hobbs threatens to impoverish Porter and his wife if he doesn't comply and after being beaten up by a couple of Hobbs' thugs, Porter is convinced that these aren't empty threats. Porter doesn't want anything to jeopardize his family life and so follows a course that he hopes will head off the kind of damage that both Caroline and Hobbs could potentially do to his future happiness.
Adrien Brody and Yvonne Strahovski are brilliantly cast as the archetypal haunted hero and femme fatale and Porter Wren's downbeat narration imbues the whole piece with the type of world-weary quality that's such an intrinsic and characteristic feature of film noir. "Manhattan Night" has numerous qualities that make it irresistible to film noir fans but also maybe doesn't possess the kind of originality or excitement that would enable it to be appreciated more strongly by a far wider audience.
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