Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Nick Richey
Starring: Dallas Dupree Young, Ava Richey, Gerrison Machado,
Mylen Bradford, Brent Bailey, Kimleigh Smith
Writer/director Nick Richey's debut feature, 2019's
Low Low, was a coming-of-age story centred on a quartet of working class teenage
girls facing an uncertain adulthood. His follow-up,
1-800-Hot-Nite sees him transfer his attention to a trio of
13-year-old boys with an equally cloudy future. But for Tommy (Dallas Dupree Young), O'Neill (Garrison Machado) and Steve (Mylen Bradford),
it's all about living for the moment and making the most of their troubled
situations.
All three boys have tough home lives. O'Neill is regularly beaten by his
father, while his cousin Steve is staying with him because his own home
life is ambiguously unsettled. Tommy dotes on his drug dealing father (DaJuan Johnson) but hates his stepmom (Nicole Steinwedell). Stealing the
latter's credit card, Tommy takes his mates to a nearby phone booth and
calls the phone sex line that gives the movie its title. Ava (Ava Richey), the woman on the other end, happily takes the credit card details,
racking up a dollar per minute of dirty talk until she realises that she's
speaking with a group of kids.
When the cops bust into Tommy's home and arrest his dad, he flees into the
night with a police officer (Brent Bailey) and Social Services
worker (Kimleigh Smith) in pursuit. The narrative that follows
takes its cues from those 1980s movies like After Hours, Into the Night and
Something Wild, where women from the wrong side of the tracks showed uptight young men
what they were missing out on life. Here the woman is mostly heard rather
than seen as Tommy calls Ava at several points during the night, not
knowing who else to talk to. Over the course of the night Ava develops a
maternal bond with the troubled boy.
Of course, Tommy and his pals find themselves in various scrapes along the
way. These range from a romantic interlude with some girls from their
school to a terrifying scene in which Tommy becomes trapped inside a house
with three creepy men and their pet snake. Richey does an impressive job
of veering between such disparate scenes without ever giving us tonal
whiplash. His is a film that reminds us that childhood is often as scary
as it is joyous.
It's the young central trio who keep us engaged, with Young, Machado and
Bradford never less than convincing as good friends. Young is particularly
impressive as the film's lead, pulling off a difficult mix of street
smarts and wide-eyed innocence. But for all the good work of the cast, the
script never quite presents us with anything particularly original. More
cynical viewers will struggle with the film's doe-eyed view of American
authority figures, with the police and social services presented in
atypically angelic fashion.
1-800-Hot-Nite played at the
Vashon Island Film Festival.
