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Take a look at the 15 movies you&#39;ll be hearing about in fall 2024.

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A police officer goes undercover on a phone sex app to solve a murder.

Al Mukadam and Ashley Bryant in Nightalk (2022)

OK, so confession time. Back in the early 1990s, I often would call a talk line to meet people. It&#39;s how I met my first wife. And it was for the same reason why one of the characters in this movie says he started to use Nightalk. I worked 90 hours a week, I hated going to bars and I was too shy to meet people. When it was just my voice and my mind, I could be as charming as I wanted to be. Imagine my surprise when this Tubi original was released and it&#39;s not about internet dating but instead, phone lines. What is this, a remake of Party Line? For the record, I am very much in favor of this. Brenda (Ashley Bryant, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer) is a cop with a troubled past: a short marriage that wasn&#39;t sexually or emotionally fulfilling; a mother who died tragically; a brother who killed himself even more tragically when he couldn&#39;t live up to the expectations of their cop dad; a dad who can&#39;t forgive his dead son or properly grieve for his dead wife. She throws herself into a career as a cop, leaving behind her choice of art history, and we&#39;re a decade into her cop life and the first case she&#39;s in charge of. Working with her partner Jimmy (Ted Hallett), they investigate the death of a woman who has been erotically asphyxiated. They start to look into her life and learn that she was a user of Nightalk, the same service that Brenda&#39;s best friend Dixie (Emily Andrews). Brenda&#39;s big cop brainstorm: use the service to find out who the killer is. But along the way -- as she related to her therapist (Rena Polley) -- she ends up falling for Tom (Al Mukadam), who regales her with dominant -- well, not really, more on that in a bit -- fantasies while she jills off as Madame Butterfly plays in the background. But what if Tom is the killer? What if you&#39;d never seen a single 80s erotic thriller and thought, &quot;This is sexy&quot; and Cinemax is a distant memory and you missed out, my friend. That said, this movie made me laugh throughout and even more so when I learned that its director Donald Shebib is in his mid-80s and hasn&#39;t made a movie in a decade. And yes, we&#39;re all getting older by the day, but there&#39;s a difference between getting old and not understanding what you&#39;re making. But who am I to doubt someone who once directed episodes of T and T, My Secret Identity and Street Justice? I mean, it&#39;s competently made -- I could go without the flashes as transitions -- but we&#39;re past the time of phone dating, not to mention when you have a smartphone, there&#39;s no need to print everything out nor does anyone stare at their home screen while talking on the phone. This also has the kind of dialogue an old man may write for a young girl to say and for that, we can thank Claude Herz, who is two years older than Shebib. The talk of sexual choking comes off so clinical -- yes, I get they&#39;re cops -- and so robotic that I&#39;m certain that no human being has ever talked like this. As for Tom&#39;s fantasies, they are as vanilla as they get. An old fashioned on a subway train while you&#39;re both in shorts? A handyman watching you take a shower? It&#39;s as if no one has ever had an erotic moment in their lives and at the end, when -- spoiler -- Brenda finally tells Tom that she wants him to be the dominant man of their phone sex, he just gets on top and tells her he loves her and they climax together before going to look at a botanical garden which is...well, kind of far from kink. What tops that is that these two have been talking on the phone for what seems like a few weeks and when she interrogates him at the station, he doesn&#39;t recognize her voice. Is she that good of a cop? Well, seeing as how she had no idea that she was so close to the killer -- is this a giallo? I say that because the least likely person is the murderer and yes, the police are fumbling in the dark -- I don&#39;t think she&#39;s all that great of a detective. But hey, Art Hindle is in it, so I was going to watch it just because I love when he&#39;s in movies. Even though I&#39;m not Canadian, I feel some surge of pride when I see him in films and make sure to have back bacon, a toque and a bottle of maple syrup on hand to properly celebrate him (for better Art Hindle movies, turn to Black Christmas, The Brood, Winter Comes Early, The Octagon and Invasion of the Body Snatchers). I also loved how when Tom said cock in his fantasy phone sex, it was like he was looking around to see if it was alright for him to say it. For a movie where the lead is supposed to -- to paraphrase Trent -- find happiness in slavery, the release she actually gets is so non-kinky that it could air on prime time TV. This is the unsexiest movie about sex that I have ever seen and I&#39;ve seen all of the Cannon sex comedies like Hot Chili (and Hot Resort) and made it through multiple viewings of Bolero, so I must be some kind of masochist myself and will now need a Nightalk voice mailbox so I can have people tease me with viewings of even worse and less sexy sexy movies. Also: This is not ageist. Gregory Dark is 65 and if he wanted to make a new erotic thriller, I would pay thosands of dollars to his Kickstarter.

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Nightalk

No pun intended - this goes deep undercover ... and under the covers. Ah the jokes write themselves - just have to watch out, because they are so wet, I might slip up (or is it down? As in getting down?) ... all kidding aside, the movie only works if you suspend your disbelief and it can work like a miracle. The main character tries to solve a murder - which in the end is way easier than anyone could have thought ... I am glad that is the case ... would not have wanted for this to go on for multiple hours. We also have her sticking her fingers where they don&#39;t belong - well there to, but since that is her ... &quot;territory&quot;, I would expect they belong there too - or however you want to say it. There is nothing else to say ... except the movie is a giant tease ... the highlight almost ... coming too late ... for those interested (too many puns? Is there such a thing?)

We watched it at TIFF and let me tell you, what a disaster of a movie. It was so bad that a handful of people walked out in the middle! Acting: You could TELL they were acting. It didn&#39;t seem like they were committed to their characters so it felt fake and unnatural. Art Hindle did seem the most natural, though. Plot: A detective joins a phone sex app to solve a crime and falls in love. Throughout, she pleasures herself a few times with a shallow story told by one of the users she later falls in love with. The whole pleasure scenes and the end sex scene were completely unnecessary and straight-up bad. Seriously, what was up with those flashing lights?! It all felt forced. There were also several goofs throughout the film, for example, half the time the detective was talking to a home screen. Lower your expectations and, who knows, you might enjoy the film, but for us, it was a big no.

With a little editing, perfect for hallmark. Lots of unintentional mistakes - police stand behind police tape which is usually used to keep public out, not the cops!!! In another scene - same silly mistakes. Now weeks, later, after lead actress (investigating detective) visits crime scene, the table in kitchen still has an open bottle of wine in table and 2 glasses and a marker for the items still on table - to &quot;show&quot; it&#39;s still a crime scene - so silly. The guy hiding his face while getting in a elevator is wearing a significant clue - a ring - yet no cop suggests to identify the ring. List goes on and on..

The outlandish concept of &quot;Nightalk&quot; was to combine a detective&#39;s quest to solve a murder case with the style of a Harlequin romance on steroids. The premise worked due to the clever dialogue and actors willing to buy into racy subtext and take the audience along on this strange journey. The detective Brenda Roberto has been assigned the lead on a murder case, and she goes undercover on a dating ap called Nightalk. It is there that she encounters what might be the prime suspect in the case. But she also experiences a new form of arousal from the experience, forging a connection with a possible killer. A typical hackneyed convention of Brenda telling her story to a therapist actually worked effectively. The scenes with shrink were typically short and segued into effective flashbacks and moments from Brenda&#39;s &quot;dream.&quot; There was good chemistry between Brenda and Tom, the mystery man from the dating ap. Actor Al Mukadam developed subtle layers to his character which helped to keep the audience guessing about his bravado on the surface and sensitivity that was being suppressed. Actress Ashley Bryant, who didn&#39;t look the part of a hard-boiled detective, was much stronger in the Harlequin romance side of her character. Some of the best moments of the film included snippets from Puccini&#39;s &quot;Madama Butterfly,&quot; which permitted the film artists to venture not only into the form of the thriller, but also the dazzling world of opera.

My wife and I went to see &quot; Nightalk&quot; during the TIFF Toronto International Film Festival st the SCotia Bank Theatre. The storyline and the plot keep you guessing and Director Donald Shebib&#39;s vision is so interesting. The cast were all very good and excellent chemistry, the filming was exceptional as was the music. Shebib connected it all so well and especially the critical moments where emotions and music peak. We truly were into the film and it takes you on a journey and in the end you will like it. After the show the patrons had great interaction with Don Shebib, Ashley Bryant, Al Mukadem, Ted Hallett and Art Hindle.

User reviews

Nightalk

Unsexy sexy

All talk, no play (?)

Just nope

feels like a 90s style TV movie

Sleepless in Seattle in the Digital Age!

Great Film For Sure

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