Hot Summer Nights (2017)

Hot Summer Nights review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Riding that neon 1980s high that audiences just can’t seem to get enough of, Hot Summer Nights takes such a casual nature to its early 1990s tale of smalltown drug dealing and young love that it may cause drowsiness. And I realize how strange it is to say that about a movie that weaves in that nostalgic lore of Terminator 2, Street Fighter 2, VHS tapes, and dated fashion. Here’s a film that throws so much of those classic elements at the screen and finds nothing to do with them, as in one telling line of narration about one kid killing himself the day Terminator 2 came out in theaters. Even he doesn’t know why he’s correlating these two events.

An awkward teenager of Cape Cod, Daniel (Timothée Chalamet) is looking for something to do and finds a pastime of slinging drugs around the county. He teams up with Hunter Strawberry (Alex Roe), the local bad boy figure who comes complete with the cool hair, jacket, and car. While selling from their supplier Dex, Daniel starts to fancy McKayla (Maika Monroe) as the bad girl he wants more than anything. The only problem is that McKayla is Hunter’s sister. Of course, that relationship won’t die easy. And the business will only get messier as weed turns into cocaine and drug selling turns to executions. Oh, and there’s a hurricane coming soon.

Now with all that going on, including a surprise cameo by William Fichtner, how could one possibly be bored? It’s rather remarkable how the film achieves this by playing it almost too straight and never finding a tone. It starts off quickly-paced with a swirling blaze of rumors edited in a manner similar to an Edgar Wright picture. But then it shifts to a softer drama where Chalamet slips into a surprisingly gentler tone for a teen dealing dope. Even his romance seems out of place, using an Elton John song for a kissing scene. Doesn’t exactly stick with the 1991 tone. And why is it that Alex Roe’s character seems so timid when facing down tougher customers? When did the high come down from this picture that clearly wants to splash in all that ragged 90s vibe?

One of the most baffling elements of the film is the narration. It’s provided by a little kid, who speaks of this place as though he remembers all these events somewhat vividly. But who is he? He’s too young to be Daniel. Maybe the director just finds stuff more nostalgic if the story comes from the mouth of babes.

Even the action seems uninspired and tiresome, which is really something for a climactic standoff of confrontations with gun while a hurricane rages. And then it becomes evident where the fault lies in this story; there’s nothing driving it, all of its setting and characters set on cruise control, lazily wandering through a town so boring even a Breaking Bad style plot couldn’t bring some life to the sleepy Cape Cod. The whole experience comes off as a thrill-less nostalgia ride that puts in the minimum effort, hoping you’ll be easily won over by the VHS-style opening title than the sleepy energy coursing through its 1990s veins.

Outside of some decent performances, Hot Summer Nights plays like a cold bit of artificial comfort, never fully enveloping into the environment or its characters, like a first draft of a 90s-loving screenwriter with a snooze of a dream about how a drug-dealing story would go down. And with so many of these nostalgia heavy films in the current cinema landscape, stories like these really need to up their game.