Interminably long opening credits, misogyny and horrific violence against women, gratuitous nudity, uninspiring music, a weakly paced and dull action scene, incompetent cops, crass and unfunny tough-talking dialogue, overcooked acting and delivery, a predatory news crew, and imbalanced sound design. These are the first twenty-one minutes of 'Night vision,' and they are far less than encouraging.
The movie carries itself with the air of a straightforward crime thriller, and adopts decidedly dark overtones and no few tropes along the way. Yet in its mostly failed attempts at levity or humor it fashions a clashing unserious vibe, and there are many scenes that plainly struggle with authenticity. When around the 35-minute mark the plot becomes more of a "buddy cop" scenario it seems like there's potential for more fun, but martial arts B star Cynthia Rothrock is rather wasted in a movie where more action-oriented scenes tend toward guns or low-level street fight slugging instead of careful disciplines. More than that, there are definite indelicacies in how that partnership is written that threaten our engagement.
By the time one hour has passed, the narrative hasn't spent much effort on advancing, and not one element of the story has piqued our interest. Characters have a few quirks or complexities, but not across the board, and not enough to make them really stand out. Dialogue broadly fluctuates between flat and boorish, with only an occasional quip or one-liner briefly offering a spark, and scene writing at large is so tepid as to mirror that dichotomy. There are possibilities in the story as written, but the threads don't convincingly connect, and considerable portions are so outlandish or unrealistic as to simply break suspension of disbelief. Meanwhile, those issues that presented themselves so immediately as 'Night vision' began absolutely have not gone away. If this feature were created with any measure of tongue-in-cheek playfulness the miasma may have been at least passable - even including a theme song written for Fred Williamson's protagonist, Dakota "Dak" Smith - but instead it only comes across as halfhearted, insincere, and/or otherwise dubious.
Michael Thomas Montgomery's screenplay is questionable enough, with a nonfunctional mix of ideas; Gil Bettman's direction is truly no better. In their guidance of the cast, the orchestration of shots and scenes, and indeed in the very oversight of the production, Bettman's contribution feels indifferent, and unbothered. There's an astounding nonchalance to the film such that apart from the most repugnant instances of misogynist violence, almost nothing here is able to elicit a reaction, least of all any thrills - and that includes the climax. All the component parts are here for what could be an enjoyable action-thriller, but instead 'Night vision' is bereft of both fun, and earnestness.
I had jumbled expectations when I began, but high hopes. Both have been dashed on very blunt, unremarkable rocks. There's no subtlety here, no real detail, no excitement, no hooks, no cleverness, no excitement. To some extent this is movie-making by numbers, but the person drawing lines between those numbers has gone about it so lazily that the pencil marks just trail off imprecisely. There was a chance this could have been an entertaining movie. It's not. Even if you're an especial fan of someone involved, 'Night vision' is so thoroughly spiritless and lackluster that it's just not worth the time it takes to watch. It's not the worst movie I've ever watched, but so what?
