What fun seeing a good ole fashion blood and guts, shoot 'em up noir. I felt like I was seeing a whole other side of the way crime thrillers could be made. This one uses sex, mostly in the backdrop and dialog in a hauntingly unerotic way--which speaks to the characters' misery and inability to feel pleasure. Not even sex or drugs can save them.

Journey's plot is secondary to the indelible, painterly images; so much like Christopher Doyle's work that I had to stop the DVD and see who the cinematographer was.

Scott Glenn rises to the occasion playing father and husband trying to make one last score so he can get out of the game. The old actor brings a lifetime of experience to the part. And really makes you invest emotionally in his plight. Also strong is Brendan Fraser, jumping out of his comedic pigeonhole and delivering an incredibly nuanced performance, at times funny, frightening and unforgettable.

It's interesting that so many people either rated this movie a 9-10 or a 1-2. I would suggest that those at the high end were dazzled by the setting and those at the low end were disappointed by the hodgepodge of what occurred there. I can't get excited enough to go to either extreme.

I agree with those who said that Brazil was unused except perhaps as a marketing tool for the movie. There was virtually no interaction with the local culture except as a passive backdrop. The acting was uninspired. I didn't think Def was all that great, although at least he underplayed his pathetic role, unlike Fraser who was over the top to the point of ridiculous. In fact the only character that seemed decently played was the relatively obscure blind seer.

The plot was full of holes, disjointed, and had no twists of any note. While others have detailed some of the major problems, I would add in the assertion that thieves set upon Def, knock him out, and then ignore the backpack laying next to him and run off without it. And he lays there in what appears to be a high crime district for quite some time and nobody chances by to see what might be in the backpack. You also have to swallow a gang packing all manner of weaponry who decides who they deal with and don't deal with based on which Nigerian dialect they speak. How's that again? I can make a million dollars doing a drug deal with you but only if you speak a specific language from my home country. Otherwise, the deal is off. Right. Then we have Def with a suitcase full of cash but unable to make a phone call. It wasn't clear why that might be exactly, but he never asks anyone for change, tries to change one of the bills in the pack, or does anything else to make what is supposed to be a critical call. Someone said he was cast in a racist and degrading role. I don't know about that, but he certainly seemed to be playing a character who was just plain stupid and unassertive. Quite a contrast with Hitchhiker, in which he was the hip insider. I'll take the latter.

Still, there was some action, enough of a plot not to fall asleep on, a few bizarre characters of passing interest, some gore, a touch of sadism, interesting lighting at times ... I didn't fast forward it at any point.

Mediocre but sufficiently entertaining to keep your attention. See it if the alternative is reruns on TV.

In a dark and decadent area of São Paulo, the exiled Americans Sinatra (Scott Glenn) and his son Paul (Brendan Fraser) own a brothel. Paul is a compulsive gambler addicted in cocaine and his father is married with the former prostitute Angie (Catalina Sandino Moreno), and they have a little son. When a client is killed by his wife in their establishment, they find a suitcase with drugs. In the night that they have scheduled a negotiation with African buyers, their African liaison dies while having sex with the travesty Nazda (Matheus Nachtergaele). Sinatra proposes to the Nigerian dishwasher of the brothel, Wemba (Mos Def), to travel to the harbor of Santos, close the business with the drug dealers and in return he would receive a large amount. Wemba accepts but while returning to his car in the harbor, he is attacked by two smalltime thieves and passes out. His lack of contact with Sinatra and Paul leads to a sequence of misunderstandings with a tragic end.

"Journey to the End of the Night" is a movie about losers that have a second chance in life, but waste it along a night of entwined mistakes. None of the characters is totally evil, they are ambiguous and develop a sort of empathy with the viewer. Scott Glenn plays an owner of a brothel, but also a family man concerned with the future of his son. The addicted and violent character of Brendan Fraser has a deep trauma from his childhood. Angie, played by Catalina Sandino Moreno, is divided between Sinatra and Paul. Wemba, played by Mos Def, is a simple honest worker that accepts to participate in a dirty business to raise easy money. The excellent Brazilian actor Matheus Nachtergaele performs a travesty in a key role. Watching this film somehow I slightly recalled "After Hours", a comedy of errors in New York. The lighting uses weird colors (yellow, red, green) and together with the bad weather, highlights the underworld of a poor and dark area in the cold São Paulo, in a film-noir style. The story is predictable, there are many coincidences, but I liked this movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "12 Horas Até o Amanhecer" ("12 Hours Until Dawn")