The Allnighter (1987)

I had a busy week.  Getting ready for vacation and trying to get all of my reviews up and running before heading out.  We’re on our way to Jamaica, mon – gonna be a great trip.  You should know, I don’t take notes during the movie, I already have all of the important information stored in my noggin.  All I have to remember is the title.  So, I jotted down the titles of the five films I’d seen between Monday and Thursday so that I could write the reviews all in one night.  But a glitch occurred with one of the titles – I couldn’t remember the movie. 

The Allnighter it was called.  I couldn’t remember it.  I puzzled and puzzed till my puzzler was sore.  “Allnighter, Allnighter . . . hmm, not ringing a bell.“ This never happens.  I don’t forget movies and I certainly don’t forget titles, but somehow this one slipped by me.  I called my friend Charles and asked if he’d seen something called The Allnighter.  Turned out he had.  His description was thus: “It’s that party movie with the girl from The Bangles.”  Ah Yes!  No wonder it slipped from my mind.

I really couldn’t be blamed for forgetting this movie.  It’s yet another of those party movies that takes place on the eve of graduation featuring three coeds going to the hottest party of the year.  Does that sound memorable?  Didn’t think so.  Also, does the presence of the beautiful Susanna Hoffs tantalize you?  Well, it shouldn’t.  She can’t act.  Or, at least I should say she can’t navigate this drivel.  Given this material, I think Meryl Streep would have to reach for it.  What’s worse?  Hoffs doesn’t even sing.  At least that might have livened things up.  So might her promised love scene which is so chased due to the PG-13 rating that it’s largely a build-up to nothing.

Not that is matters but Hoffs plays Molly, the class valedictorian whose major concern is that (in spite of her looks) she never really got to experience love [I’m using Charles’ notes to jog my memory].  Of course, one would conclude that this is kind of Molly’s problem, that a beautiful girl not finding the right guy at a major university after four years wouldn’t seem to be all that difficult.  Sure, there are a lot of duds and creeps out there but surely there must be one guy that you connect with.  So, on the last night, she goes out looking for some passion and finds an aging rock star named Mickey, played by Michael Ontkean.

Her friends, by the way, are not exactly defined as characters.  The more interesting is Gina (Joan Cusack, sister of John) who carries around a video camera.  The less interesting is Val (Dedee Pfeiffer, sister of Michelle) who, naturally, gets tangled up with a yuppie who is beneath her.  Also along for the right are two dudding himbos, Killer (James Anthony Shanta) and C.J. (John Terlesky), who are self-absorbed and sexist to the point of parody.

This plot could have been plugged into a computer, enter keywords and out would come this script.  I might have thought so until I learned that the movie was written by Tamar Simon Hoffs, who is Susanna’s mother.  She does her daughter no favors by pushing her through a movie that is ragingly forgottable.  I’ve had to write fast, it is slipping from my memory again.