All Night Wrong: Two Wrongs Make an Alright Action Comedy

By Chris Knight

Rating: C+

All Night Wrong is one of those romantic action-comedies where everything that can go wrong does. Think Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum in The Lost City, or Steve Carell and Tina Fey in Date Night.

Now think a bit smaller. The stars aren’t unknown, but they’re not A-list either. Maria Bakalova got her breakout in the Borat sequel and played Ivana Trump in The Apprentice. Zach Cherry is the plus-sized office drone from Severance.

They play Ell and Gary, who swiped right — but also wrong — on a hookup app and are now meeting to have sex. They each have their reasons for the encounter, which Jason Filiatrault’s script will introduce and then further explain when it’s good and ready.

The “everything that can go wrong” part is taken care of quickly. Our two lustbirds “borrow” a car from the motel where they plan to tryst. It turns out to have a dead body in the trunk, along with a bag of cash. Gary gets blood on his hands. Ell touches the murder weapon. Who’s going to believe they’re innocent?

We’ll never find the answer to that one, because the laws of movies demand they flee from their misfortune, with the car’s rightful owner (Tyler Labine in a nicely villainous turn) in pursuit. I’d say hot pursuit, but All Night Wrong was made in Kootenay, B.C., in the dead of winter. Labine can’t stop bitching about it.

Much of the movie is… adequate. The two leads are perfectly fine, although their bickering sometimes leans too much into the emotionally real and away from the comedic. The threat of being wrongfully accused, or rightfully hunted down by the real killer, keeps the pot boiling.

But the film labours at making decisions seem like the only thing they could do, when in fact they have other choices, they’re just not as funny. There is, however, a sweet undercurrent of love running through the tale. Almost every character is driven by the heart; well, except for one, and I guess you could pin the root of that one’s evil on a love of money.

Perhaps an odd spot to mention this, but the opening credits play like a calling card for someone’s expertise in that craft. Like a mix of Hitchcock, Casino Royale and Catch Me If You Can, they are a swirl of groovy, moody, blocky animation. They don’t quite match the movie that follows, but they’re wildly entertaining.

At the other end of things, I didn’t love the final product, but neither was it horrible. All Night Wrong was, in the end, just alright.

All Night Wrong. Directed by Jason James. Starring Maria Bakalova, Zach Cherry, and Tyler Labine. In theatres August 21.