Overnight

Like watching a train wreck in slow motion while an ignorant, arrogant engineer shovels more coal onto the fire, Overnight is a cautionary tale about the fickle nature of showbiz in which the victim is his own worst enemy. Following the rapidly self-destructing, dud-rocket career of Troy Duffy--a Boston bartender/bouncer who on a fluke landed a sweetheart writing-directing deal with Miramax in 1997--this documentary would be painful to watch if its subject weren't such an insufferable lunkheaded egomaniac. The kind of boastful, booze-pounding tough guy who might get in bar fights for fun, Duffy and his friends videotape every moment for three years, planning what he clearly thinks will be a rise-to-glory “making-of” about his vigilante-with-a-heart feature debut, and the illustrious career that is sure to follow. But this flash-in-the-pan refuses all advice and begins alienating powerful Hollywood players, burning bridges left and right. Watching the subsequent debacle unfold isn't what I'd call entertaining, but the disaster is at once tragic, richly deserved, and uncomfortably personal--and that combination makes it fascinating. Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)