Survive the Night (2020) | Film Review

Bruce Willis and Chad Michael Murray star as a father and son whose family is held hostage by a pair of brothers on the lam.

Once upon a time, knowing Bruce Willis was sleeping upstairs while a pair of violent siblings akin to the Gecko Brothers took over his home would lead to an automatic assumption that a metric ton of ass-whoopin’ was about to be unleashed. But as the years have waded on, so has Willis’ age, and he has officially entered the “retired sheriff with a disappointing son” phase of his career. And with a diabolical duo ascending on their family farm, Bruce Willis and family do not need explosions or witty asides, they simply need to Survive the Night.

Rich (Chad Michael Murray) – along with his wife and daughter (Lydia Hull and Riley Wolfe Rach) – is forced to share a roof with his parents, Frank and Rachel (Willis and Jessica Abrams), after Dr. Rich botches an operation. Relegated to disgrace and shame, Rich takes up a job as a local veterinarian to make ends meet and dig his family out of financial despair. It is here that criminals Mathias and Jamie (Tyler Jon Olson and Shea Buckner) lay eyes on Rich, as they need a doctor to repair a bullet wound in the leg which Mathias suffers after his hot-headed brother botches a trite stop to fuel up.

Mathias and Jamie seize Frank’s home under a cloak of darkness and immediately the situation goes awry. Jamie is impulsive, and the further Mathias fades into the black, the more unstable and reckless Jamie becomes. Frank and Rich are forced to put ideological differences aside and come together in order to save their family and, you guessed it, survive the night.

Cutting right to the chase, there is nothing in Doug Wolfe’s script that will revolutionize your cinematic experience. Survive the Night is a straight-forward thriller where clichés abound and the audience is fairly confident of our ultimate destination before they even get the car packed for the trip. Yet, Wolfe still tosses in enough surprises along the way to at least keep you questioning how assured you are of the eventual outcome, especially which characters will make it through.

Rich himself is a struggle bus full of missed expectations – from both his wife and father – and Chad Michael Murray captures the proper light of a person growing into the kind of man his father believes him to be through the trials of tragedy. Bruce Willis, despite several play-it-safe roles over the last few years, actually has to downplay his star wattage for us to relate to Frank. Willis has been a movie star for decades for a reason, his mere presence carries a weight and depth to the proceedings. By going a tinge against type and allowing Frank a measure of vulnerability, Willis does himself and his character justice.

The standout here is Shea Buckner as the increasingly disjointed Jamie. As a thug who cares about his brother immensely and very little for anyone else, Jamie’s mission is exceptionally thin: keep Mathias alive at all costs. Though his brother begs him to spare everyone, Jamie’s compassion wanes as the night rages on, and Buckner relishes the opportunity to veer wildly from rational to ballistic in the span of a single sentence of dialogue.

Director Matt Eskandari tackles the miniscule budget and time restrictions with confidence (it was shot in less than 10 days), injecting the film with an engaging tone and brisk pace that refuses to idle too long on any one scene. Despite an overly familiar plot, Survive the Night remains an entertaining ride.