Survive The Night – A Classic Throwaway VOD Action Thriller

Survive The Night saw two brothers, Jamie (Shea Buckner) and Mathias (Tyler Jon Olsen), after the score of a lifetime, earn freedom to hit the road for Mexico. Starting off an interesting position with Mathias mortally wounded in the course of a robbery, it was then up to his much younger, loose-canon brother to fix this mess. Meanwhile, Rich (Murray) a once-promising doctor, now bankrupt and living with his parents out on their farm with his wife Jan (Hull) and their daughter Riley (Riley Wolfe Rach). All of them are trying to sort out their new life while Rich takes shifts at the local clinic all while trying to fix his marriage and raise his daughter. Meanwhile, Rich’s father Frank (Willis), a former sheriff, has settled down into retired life. It just so happens that they don’t really get along. While they never really did, Rich’s current condition simply made it worse.

The story then put these two families on a crash collision course towards one another as Mathias suddenly needs Rich’s help to save his life. Pretty simple right? Well, not so much as the stakes were immediately raised once Jamie further unravelled, slipping deeper into darkness. As a result, Rich and his family must survive the night and overcome the odds stacked against them. While Survive The Night wasn’t terrible, it felt like the story was going through the motions, feeling like a merry-go-round. Bad guys ties-up family, a fight breaks out and a cat and mouse game ensues, it feels like rewatching the same scene over and over again. When it’s already difficult to get invested in these bleak and cut and dry characters, it would have been helpful to mix in something different.

Survive The Night tries to break up some of the bleakness with some good old fashion father-son bonding that never quite felt genuine, because there’s just no heart being put into it. Murray as Rich is clearly trying so hard to make it work though in the end, he’s merely talking to a corpse that was Willis’ Frank. Nothing really adds up here, it’s pretty much a mesh of scenes thrown together while a single tug on that thread threatens to unravel it all. Absolutely nothing about this felt new or original whatsoever, as it all had been done before countless times in countless much better films. Being a big Chad Michael Murray fan, this film wasn’t enough to make the film an overall enjoyable experience.

Bruce Willis has been in a lot of questionable films over the course of his dwindling career and Survive The Night was no different as he once again checks out of this one. It seemed like he wanted to die during this home invasion scene so he didn’t have to be part of the film any longer. Showcasing zero emotion and appearing slugging through many scenes, the film would likely have fared better with any actor who actually cared for the material. Murray does his best to keep the film afloat, it’s ultimately a sinking ship that brings absolutely nothing new to the table. In order for a film like this to truly stand out, this is a must.

still courtesy of VVS Films

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Wannabe Movie Critic