Released 2003
Directed by Tony Montana, Mark Brian Smith

"Overnight" tells a riches-to-rags story, like "Project Greenlight" played in reverse. "Greenlight," you will recall, is the Miramax contest to choose and produce one screenplay every year by a hopeful first-time filmmaker. In "Overnight," the director starts out with a contract and money from Miramax, and works his way back to no contract, no film, and no money. Call it "Project Red Light."

The documentary tells the Hollywood story of a nine-day's wonder named Troy Duffy. He was a bartender at a sports bar called J. Sloan's on Melrose, and had written a screenplay titled "The Boondock Saints." He, his brothers and some friends had a rock band. In Los Angeles, every bartender under the age of 70 has a screenplay and is in a rock band, and they all want Harvey Weinstein of Miramax to read their script. After all, Harvey made Matt Damon and Ben Affleck stars by producing their screenplay of "Good Will Hunting."

Troy Duffy hits the trifecta. Not only does Harvey buy his screenplay, but he signs Duffy to direct it, and the band gets a recording contract, and he agrees to buy the bar; they'll own it together. To celebrate his good fortune, Duffy asked two friends, Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith, to make a documentary of his rise. It turned out to be about his fall.

Summary by Roger Ebert

This is an interesting story, but not a great documentary. It's hard to tell who's who and what the relationships are between all of the players, which makes it difficult to follow Troy's fall from grace. The worst part is we don't learn why Harvey Weinstein took such delight in tearing him down. Troy was obviously too big for his britches and became belligerent and antagonistic, but the storyline is so murky it's difficult to tell what the cause and effect were. In other words, did Troy behave this way because Miramax started treating his team poorly, or did Miramax start treating them poorly because Troy demanded to be the #1 priority in Hollywood? I know that was his personality and the fallout was probably bound to happen, but tell us what happened! The movie is entertaining, but I think more accomplished documentary makers could make a more compelling version of this story from the same footage. --Bill Alward, July 22, 2005