Nightwatch

From the opening credits of Ole Bornedal's remake of his Danish hit Nattevagten, it's clear the director is trying very hard. A young woman undergoes bondage. A tinny version of "This Old Man" is cued up. Intercut are flashes of a sloshed law student Martin (a bland Ewan McGregor), his girlfriend Katherine (Patricia Arquette), and best friend James (Josh Brolin) celebrating his new job as night watchman at the city morgue. The inevitable gouts of blood and blatant Psycho references. Police Inspector Cray (Nick Nolte) fielding questions about the latest serial killing on the TV. "It's so creepy," someone mutters about Martin's new position.

So it would seem, and in this empty exercise in style and mood you know there's going to be a bum neon tube flickering outside the room where the bodies are kept to counterpoint the moths fluttering in the light fixture over Martin's desk. Such touches are more intriguing than figuring out who's killing all the heroin-chic prostitutes and trying to pin the blame on Martin. Is it Brolin's Nietzschean James? Nolte's crapulous Cray? Arquette's somnolent Katherine, who seems familiar with the "phenothiazine family" espoused by the duty doctor played by Brad Dourif in a cute cameo? Martin has to stay up all night to figure it out; everybody else will be lucky to make it through the movie. At the Showcase Cinemas Route 6.

-- Peter Keough