Nightride is a crime thriller film directed by Stephen Singleton starring Moe Dunford, Joana Ribeiro, Gerard Jordan, and Stephen Rea. The film was just released on the Amazon Prime streaming platform on March 4. The uniqueness of this 97-minute film is that it uses a long take technique throughout the film, with 90% of the film being done on a moving car.
Budge (Dunford) has been involved in the criminal underworld for a long time. With his girlfriend, Sofia (Ribeiro), he wants to retire, but Budge must finish one last job. The task is simple. He had to deliver the goods (5kg of cocaine) in a van to the buyer, then deliver the money, and he took the fee. Trouble started when someone was stalking Budge, so he had to send two of his men to pick up and deliver the van. The problem gets even more complicated when someone steals the van.
Because it uses a long take technique, the camera follows Budge’s without pause throughout the plot. Almost all of the dialogue is done through cellular conversations, which is also done on a running car. As a result, all conflicts and problems emerge from these dialogues without seeing them the slightest bit. A missing van we can only imagine. The case is exactly like the recently released thriller Desperate Hours, dominated by mobile conversations. This causes the story’s intensity to be higher and tenser, especially when there is a deadline. If it’s too late, there are consequences. The threat to Budge feels real because of its real-time (non-stop) presentation. The story could be made even more suspenseful. We see Budge driving around in his car the whole time without getting the slightest bit involved in the actual action. Just compare it with Wheelman (2017), starring Frank Grillo.
The long take technique (continuous shot without a break/cut), which is the strength of the film, is also presented quite complicated because it is presented on a moving car. Not only the movement and position of the camera, but the audio factor certainly makes it more difficult. In one scene, the audio seems unnatural because it uses a clip on the player’s body to record his voice. Overall, his long take technique is presented very well, but it seems very clear if there is a blurred transition in a shot. This is exactly what Birdman (2014) and 1917 (2019) did. Difficult to make a complete shot of 97 minutes with fast actions presented in the film.
Nightride, with its long take, is a rare action thriller, although, from a story point of view, it is less bite-sized for its genre. At least, this film adds to the long list of films that use long takes. Making a complete film with this technique, such as Russian Ark or Victoria, is not easy. It’s just that the thing that’s a little bit annoying is the motive for using this technique in the film. One last job? All the “long take” films mentioned above have strong motives; maybe someone has an opinion about Nightride?
