There is an old friend of mine named Jim Costello that I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to. In a most unusual way that I'll never forget, he turned me onto this film. In 1985 I was a cab dispatcher for Celebrity Cab in Los Angeles and Jim was one of my drivers and good friend. It was a Friday afternoon, we had both just got off work so Jim came over to my place in Hollywood (right behind the Palladium) to do some TGIF partying. He took out a bag of cocaine the size of a loaf of bread and then took out a VHS tape, proclaiming, "wait until you see this movie, this is an advance copy, it doesn't even come out for another week!"
I replied something to the effect that my pot and booze didn't need nobody and "what's so special about this movie?" As we watched and partied together, I realized every location in this virtual tour of LA at night, either Jim had picked up somebody in his cab or I had dispatched him. The music of BB King and the wonderful opening sequence of a plane landing at LAX still brings me back to that fun afternoon.
And what a fun film it is. It doesn't fit into any one genre or combo of genres for that matter. And it's certainly not "black comedy" as listed on Wiki. It's John Landis' love letter to LA as created that year, a trip thru the city at night. Goldblum plays a burnt-out aerospace engineer who can't sleep. He drives to LAX one night hoping to catch a red-eye to Vegas to cure his insomnia. Instead, he runs into (literally) Pfiffer, an amateur smuggler and the adventure thru LA at night begins.
Landis enlisted the help of many friends for this homage and the cast is a cornucopia of great names. A ton of memorable cameos, especially David Bowie. The entire soundtrack is by BB King and very underrated - he did an amazing job of sonically catching that vibe of mid-'80's cocaine-infused LA.
Hopefully, as the decades rock on, Into The Night will enjoy new popularity and maybe even a cult kind of status. It is truly an understated masterpiece, a very special film. For Goldblum fans, an absolute must, he's at his 100% best here. VOD only right now but worth every penny, enjoy. 3.5 stars/5
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