Review of The Overnighters (2014) by Reini U — 31 Mar 2015

This is one of those new american stories that wrote itself and you just need to hold your documentary camera at. Even if US documentaries are mostly unwatchable in its gross preachery, artistic choices, musical overdubbing and bad TV style, there are few exceptional counterexamples. Like D.A Pennebaker, John Gianvito, Albert Maysles, Frederick Wiseman, Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky, Andrew Jarecki, Barbara Kopple and Ondi Timoner.

Recent exemplary and totally untypical US documentaries were "Bible Quiz" (Slamdance 2013) and "After Tiller" (Sundance 2013) where the story just unfolds itself and leaves you speechless.

The best documentary 2014 "The Overnighters" is a different beast though. It has all the legendary material to become a cult classic, the fight between a small growing town with too many jobs but no affordable homes and a pastor who houses those who come taking the jobs for a while, and the typical christian dilemma the ones are facing when they try to be christians, and the strategies the ones have to follow to discredit too much literal christianism.

But this documentary has several severe mistakes. The biggest one it's musical overdubbing. Apparently you physically have to bury every documentary with music unless you are either making a musical documentary or are one of the legends above or a really good film student.

The 2nd biggest problem is the surprise revelation at the end, which is unfortunately the truth so it needs to be in the film, but it sacks the story too easily. That's really bad luck. It's still a must see movie and together with "Dinosaur 13" the only good US documentary 2014.