Nightwatch

Nightwatch (1997)

A law student takes a job as a night watchman at a morgue and begins to discover clues that implicate him as the suspect in a series of murders.

Date of release
1997-01-31
TMDB
6.1 / 10 (460)
Runtime
1h 42m
Genres
Drama, Horror, Thriller
Director
Ole Bornedal

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Nightwatch

Nightwatch is a 1997 American thriller film directed by Ole Bornedal, written by Bornedal and Steven Soderbergh, and starring Ewan McGregor, Patricia Arquette, Josh Brolin, Lauren Graham and Nick Nolte. It was written by Bornedal and Steven Soderbergh. It is a remake of the 1994 Danish film of the same name, which was also directed by Bornedal.

Production

After the original Nattevagten found critical acclaim in 1994, Danish director Ole Bornedal was hired by Dimension Films (who had recently purchased the distribution rights for Nattevagten) to come to the United States and remake the film. The remake was intended to be the first of three films Bornedal would direct for Miramax, the parent company of Dimension.

Principal photography for the remake took place in Los Angeles, California, in the localities of Culver City and UCLA. It was the first American film made by Scottish actor Ewan McGregor, who used a fake American accent for the role of Martin Bells.

McGregor's initial impression of Los Angeles upon flying to the city was that It "looked like the world's biggest caravan park." McGregor said he started to miss the "plants and birds and rocks" of the Scottish countryside while making Nightwatch, which led to him frequently watching golf on television. In a September 1997 interview, Josh Brolin reflected on his role as Martin's best friend James, saying "my character has interior problems.

Nightwatch took much longer to complete than originally expected, due to a series of test screenings and reshoots Miramax ordered. According to McGregor, one of these reshoots forced him to fly back to Los Angeles and cancel a two day holiday he had set aside for his wife and baby daughter. Changes made by Dimension to the finished cut included reducing the role of Marie, and adding a "more satisfying final scene".

The co-writer of the film's script, Steven Soderbergh, is described as having "sanitized" the original 1994 script. For example, in the Danish version, there is a scene at a restaurant where the character Jens orders a prostitute to give Martin a blowjob. In the remake, Jens (now known as James) instead orders the prostitute to give Martin a handjob.

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