Oftentimes, it can feel like if you’ve seen one action thriller, you’ve seen them all. The genre often follows the same beats, with the same action set pieces, and the usual results. Night Call, a French-Belgian movie filmed and set in Brussels, has a familiar plot you’ve come across many times, but thanks to the writing efforts of Michiel Blanchart and Gilles Marchand, with Blanchart also in the directors’ chair, Night Calls stands with better efforts due to its relentless high stakes and a believable and sympathetic performance from its lead, Jonathan Feltre. Night Call does nothing new, but it does the standards the right way.
What Is ‘Night Call’ About?

Night Call (its French name is La nuit se traîne) is set over the course of one night in Brussels, Belgium. As the film opens, the city is in the midst of a large Black Lives Matter protest over the killing of a Black man by the local police. Our hero is an unrelated Black man named Mady (Feltre), an aspirational college student who works nights as a locksmith. When we meet him, he’s helping a wealthy, rich white couple get into their home after they have forgotten their keys. He can barely rest before he gets another call, this time from a young woman named Claire (Natacha Krief), who claims that she has accidentally locked herself out of her apartment. Mady meets her at the building, but right away we can tell something is off with her. Mady needs money up front and her ID before he can let Claire into the apartment, but she says she can’t because everything is locked inside.
Mady is suspicious but a trusting man who wants to assume the best in people, a small detail that immediately puts us on his side. He lets Claire in and waits for her to come back out. After being in the apartment for a bit, Claire returns with a bag and says she’ll be right back with the money after she goes to an ATM. However, a minute later she calls Mady and apologizes for lying to him before telling him to hurry out of the apartment before its true occupant arrives. It’s too late though, as an angry brute of a man catches Mady in his apartment. A fight to the death ensues before Mady is captured by a crime boss named Yannick (Romain Duris) and his thugs, including Theo (Jonas Bloquet). As it turns out, Claire has stolen Yannick’s money from the apartment. Our villain gives Mady one option: find out who Claire is and get the money back, or he won’t live to see tomorrow.
‘Night Call’ Makes the Most Out of Its Gimmick

In an interview with Variety, writer and director Michiel Blanchart spoke about coming up with Night Call’s premise while walking the streets of Brussels every day, waiting for inspiration to strike him. He was a fan of films like Collateral, After Hours, and Duel, which took place over one day, and although Night Call isn’t as good as those examples, it is a love letter to his home that is striking for not coming across the usual Hollywood film, but something more intimate, because it was filmed on the streets Blanchart would so often walk.
Deciding that Night Call would happen throughout one night is Blanchart’s best choice. The film could have dove deeper into who Mady, Yannick, and a select few other characters are, giving us many more scenes of them outside the plot, but instead of questions being answered, we’re dropped into the middle of the action and have to figure things out as we go along. We’re not even going to get answers to the motivation of every character, but that’s not needed. Do we need to know every detail behind why Mady is a good person, or why Yannick does what he does? We’re given just enough, because it’s not the backstory we’re here for, but the chase.

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Brussels is a beautiful city, and we get to explore its city streets quite a bit. It’s a shame, actually, that we don’t see more of it, as more time is spent inside or in dark alleyways. Still, maybe that’s for the best, because Night Call is in a hurry and isn’t concerned with lingering on every detail. At barely ninety minutes long, it gets in and gets out without ever dragging. So many action movies slow down in the second act, allowing us to catch our breath for too long, before pushing us head first into the climactic last moments, but not Night Call. It feels like an hour-and-a-half-long third act.
‘Night Call’ Is Not an Overtly Political Movie

Image via Magnet Releasing

Staying steeped in the action is both a good thing and a hindrance. Night Call moves along so fast that you barely have time to notice the flaws hidden in its pace. Mady is in nearly every scene, and he’s a smart character who fights back as best he can, without becoming another John Wick clone. Still, there are moments where he’s written dumbly out of nowhere to advance the plot, or written to be in the right place at the right time against all odds for the same effect. And yeah, you’re gonna get several scenes of him being chased and shot at by criminals with the advantage (and the weapons), only for him to keep escaping.
Night Call is a fun film, as the clock ticks in finding out who betrayed Yannick and getting his money back. What’s Mady to do when he does find that person, and can Yannick be trusted to keep his word and let our hero go if Mady does what he’s told? Yannick is a paint-by-numbers, underwritten villain who comes across as menacing thanks to Romain Duris’ portrayal, but he’s often literally sitting on the sidelines. The threat lies in his henchman, especially Theo, a criminal who we sympathize with at times, but who also becomes a bit of the stereotypical bad guy who messes up so often that you wonder why Yannick ever hired him in the first place.
Then there’s the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter protest that’s going on throughout the plot. If you’re going in thinking it’s going to be integral to the plot, Night Call doesn’t focus too much on this choice. In the beginning, Mady does have the chance to call the police for help, but as he holds the ringing phone in his hand, the news on the TV shows cops in riot gear beating protesters. Mady hangs up the phone, and we can tell why. We get a scene of Black protesters asking Mady why he’s not joining them, along with the imagery of the one Black guy being chased by a bunch of white guys, but this isn’t an explicit movie about police brutality and racism. Instead, it’s a standard action movie that happens to a Black man because he was afraid to ask for help. Perhaps that’s the point. Mady could have avoided all of this if he thought those in power would see him as the victim. Night Call does explore this topic a little deeper in an all too quick ending, but it’s stronger by simply being a fun, high-octane action movie about a chase against time through a fascinating city. For the most part, that’s enough.
Night Call comes to theaters on January 17.

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Night Call doesn’t reinvent the action thriller wheel, but its high stakes, unique setting, and fast pace put it above most.

Pros

It gets into the action right away without becoming bogged down in setup.
Jonathan Feltre’s Mady feels like a real person in an impossible situation.
The Brussels setting and Black Lives Matter protest backdrop keeps everything fresh.

Cons

The characters have to be put in some nonsensical situations to keep the plot going.
As with most action films, you have to suspend your disbelief during intense moments.
It needed ten more minutes to tell its story.

Release Date

August 28, 2024

Director

Michiel Blanchart

Cast

Jonathan Feltre
, Natacha Krief
, Jonas Bloquet
, Romain Duris
, Mustii
, Sam Louwyck
, Laura Masci
, Claire Bodson
, Graham Guit
, Marco Maas
, Guillaume Kerbusch
, Carole Trevoux
, Toni D’Antonio
, Valentin Wilbaux

Runtime

97 minutes