Well, Night Shift Was Certainly Made In 1982, No Denying That

The vast majority of movies reflect a certain time period, whether it's the actual era they were made in or a specifically chosen past time period that's intended to reflect the themes of the story. Sometimes, these specific time periods manage to manifest themselves in subtle ways, other time, they come out in intentionally more overt mechanisms. And then there's Night Shift, a Ron Howard directed movie which wears the fact that it was made in the 1980's (1982 to be exact) on its sleeve just by the wardrobe choices of Michael Keaton's character and the presence an extended 1980's montage sequence alone. The fact that it's such an obvious time capsule of this decade is probably the most interesting thing about this breezy but super forgettable and messy comedy.

If you think you've seen meek push-overs in cinema, you ain't met Chuck Lumley (Henry Winkler), a guy who makes Rick Moranis or Petri The Pteradactyl look like the apex of macho intimidation. Chuck's been a push-over all his life, with the only real happiness he gets stemming from his brief interactions with his next door neighbor, sex worker Bellinda (Shelley Long). Chuck's newly designated night shift at the local morgue (where he's worked for quite a while) is turning out to be another boring event in his boring life, even with the presence of his energetic motormouth co-worker Bill Blazejowski (Michael Keaton).

But once Bill hears that Bellinda's pimp just died, he gets a great idea; he and Chuck should become pimps and handle Bellinda and other call girls at the morgue! The results of this newfound plan are anything but boring, a major departure for Chuck and his conventionally tedious ways. Wacky antics ensue of course, with nothing standing out as particularly humorous aside from a few lines from Michael Keaton's hyper-determined character. The story, which zig-zags into new plot points in an abrupt fashion constantly, is at least always moving, which keeps the movie more often than not agreeable.

I just wish, above all else, the film was funnier, since a number of its comedy bits fall flat, including an extended frat party sequence that seems to solely exist so they could cash in on the then-massive popularity of college-centric films like Animal House. Chuck's neurotic behavior, despite Henry Winkler giving the role 100%, only gets one or two laughs and is otherwise more repetitive than anything else while the lead characters newfound occupation as pimps doesn't really lead to much comedic gold. To be fair, there's not a lot of jokes here that are torturously misfires, a lot of the jokes just tend to fizzle out and leave you with no impression whatsoever.  Like I said, the movie at least keeps throwing in new elements at a rapid enough pace for it to avoid being outright bad but the lack of frequent laughs becomes an obvious major issue really quickly.

Night Shift takes a swift turn into the puzzling in the third act, when serious romantic elements between Chuck and Bellinda emerge that really don't work at all. The duo's chemistry is nil and the fact that Chuck is cheating on his girlfriend (whose worst trait that is deserving of being cheated on is...being paranoid?) is wholly ignored despite his wife being a key component of the previous two acts, creating this whole vortex of negative elements surrounding a romance the movie wants you to obviously take very very seriously. The forced presence of two gangster antagonists (who show up in the first scene and then vanish completely, never even getting hinted at, until a later scene in the third act) only further compounds the scattered nature of this movie.

It's pretty obvious that the screenplay by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel is a scattered mess, though, as said before, the fact that all of these oddball elements come into the story at such a rapid succession means it doesn't get too overly tedious (though the romantic scenes between Chuck and Bellinda do tread into that territory). If you want some funny Michael Keaton quips and some endearingly corny elements that coulda happened in the 1980's (I am way too proud of predicting that Michael Keaton would be the last person to try out clothes in this movies version of an extended montage sequence that was a hallmark of comedies from this era), well you do get this. There's just not much else here, especially in the way of successful comedy, to make it worth it for you to take the Night Shift.