Late Shift (I) (2016) User Reviews

Late Shift – The Movie Where You Are the Hero

[nickperdikaris · 8/10 · 26 November 2016]

What if you had the power to decide for Johnny or Billy in that Hollywood flick you saw recently? Would you have returned to the scene of the crime after successfully getting away the first time? Would you return home to get your grandfather's watch while murderous mobsters are looking for you? Tobias Weber's Late Shift allows you to make these choices.

Shot in London and released in 2016, the Swiss production is being called the first ever interactive film – the movie where you can be the hero. Remember those books when you were a kid? If Optimus Prime should just transform and roll out, go to page 84.If he should stay and fight Megatron, go to page 32. Well, Weber and his crew have brought the you-be-the-hero theme to the silver screen and your mobile device – and it is one very unique and game changing experience. What will amaze you the most is the seamlessness of the whole process. There are absolutely no pauses or lags while you are making your choices that would make it feel like a video game. The result is an authentic film viewing experience.

Definitely Check this out.

[goswamiumang509 · 7/10 · 16 January 2018]

Superb experience with excellent cinematography and good acting.I Like the concept and look forward to seeing in future. The story has 8 Different endings it really depends on your choices.

Want to be the main character?

[karlkrogholt1 · 8/10 · 13 November 2018]

This Is a great concept and a very clever idea. It makes you more immersed in the story because you actually get to make a lot of the choices the main character are facing. The movie is shot beautifully and the acting is on point, much better than I expected. I have played/seen the movie two times now and i got two completely different stories and endings. And There are seven different endings so I will defiantly play/see this again sometime to discover another outcome.

Very different and interesting. Pleasently surprised.

[The_Celluloid_Sage · 7/10 · 6 April 2020]

For those of you that are aware of this you might be wondering why I'm reviewing this here. Back in the nineties FMB games were all the rage, despite many of them not exactly being all that good. Terrible resolution and mostly of dubious quality. Some of them were fun though and added a different and new slant to the gaming industry and experience. Over the last few years interactive video games have made a little bit of a resurgence and this must be up there with the very best of them. A video game this is most certainly not though.

Dubbed as an interactive film, this little swiss produced feature is at its heart a full feature film. The only 'game' elements that exist are you making choices for Matt (Sowerbutts) as you follow him during perhaps the worst night of his young life. This is done very well though, with no break in the film or action. Any of you familiar with quick time events in video games will be used to the decisions that appear and subsequently need clicking. There is a timer bar on these so one must think quickly before the decision is lost (and presumably defaults to a cannon decision).

So to the actual story. The film opens to beautiful and atmospheric overhead shots of London at night. Matt is a student studying mathematics and we join the film as we see Matt making his way to what we find out is his evening part-time job. He works in a secure underground parking complex where he wearily and sadly comments that the array of expensive machinary on show are the only meaningful relationships he has ever had. After a brief conversation with a patron and his date Matt settles down to read his study material over what will be his late shift.

The patron's date arrives at Matt's little guard hut and after some eye batting and cute smiling says she needs the keys to the car. This is where the start of the decision making takes place proper. A I will say no more as the actual real plot of the story then quickly unfolds. Needless to say (presumably regardless of which decisions you make), Matt's night quickly heads south at an alarming rate as he is shot at, threatened and ends up as part of a hesist on an auction house. Things could definitely have gone better for him.

So why the review? Well, this interactive movie (and there is not that much interaction in all honesty) is pretty much all film. Again, any interaction is soley reduced to making a yes or no decision etc. As a film though, well this is pretty good and if we go by other recent british crime thrillers (notably with Danny dyer in them) then this is far above them all as a gritty crime drama. While there are a couple of jarring plot contrivances and script errors overall this is a good production, though I appreciate some of those may have something to do with the multiple choice aspect.

Writer and director Weber is not known to me for anything else so this makes this feature all the more impressive. Funded by a fund for cultural projects as well as a Swiss televeision network helped Weber get the project going though this mostly privately funded. As mentioned before this all very impressive given the experience and budget. Cinematography is fantastic and London looks absolutely gorgeous in the night scenes, from bustling areas to the lesser known back alleys and other districs. Likewise direction is sharp and you are never in doubt as to what is happening or why.

My only complaint (as is usually the case) is the audio. The soundtrack is is reasonably good and fits the overall theme of the movie but in far too many places it drowns out the audio. As is usual with a 'video game' you get the option of subtitles. I usually choose not to have these hsowing but within ten minutes decided it would perhaps be wise to use them. Your mileage may vary here depending on system setup and whether you use headphones or not. But be warned, it is an issue in places. That is though perhaps a minor annoyance in an otherwise good production.

As previously mentioned, the script does suffer in places but is otherwise acceptable and all the cast do their best with what they have. Barring a couple of characters I would say the cast do an excellent job and as television regulars I'm sure they adapted to this production well. An interactive 'movie' that seamlessly merges the decision making you choose for Matt into what you are watching. If when watching a film you always wanted the hero to go left instead of right, fight instead of run, then give this one a try, I think you might be pleasently surprised.



The Sage's Rating: 7/10

Worst shift ever (?)

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 12 May 2021]

There are different kind of gamers. There are obviously also people who would never want to be (identified as) gamers. There are those who love games where it's all about shooting others (first person or not) - but there are also those (like me) who love games for the story they are telling. What better way to experience games like this then? Nothing I'd say, but that is a personal thing for everyone to decide.

Interactive games/movies like this do not require much "gaming" anyway. You decide something and then you see what your choice will lead to. Sometimes those choices do not matter much (the inciting incident at the beginning ... it almost doesn't matter how you react to it, it will lead you to the same place anyway), sometimes they do matter ... a lot of fun and a lot of choices, morally and otherwise! I played it quite a few times to get every possible ending ... I did not regret it at all (even if I watched some video cut scenes more than I care about) ...

Seven endings, 180 choices!

[tanviruhmed · 9/10 · 5 August 2021]

Developed by CtrlMovie and published by Wales Interactive, which created the similar "The Bunker," "Late Shift" introduces you to a Brit named Matt (Joe Sowerbutts), who's working the -- you guessed it -- late shift at a high-end car garage. But it wouldn't be particularly exciting to see Matt study advanced mathematics for the whole night, so chaos quickly makes its presence known in the form of a thug with a gun.

Soon enough, you find yourself with a group of thieves in a London auction house. Matt's paired up with May-Ling (Haruka Abe), who quickly becomes as important as the main character.

This sequence of events is mostly static. But what Matt does next is up to the player. Will you try to escape or (like me) just roll with the punches coming your way?

Directed by Tobias Weber (who would think I'd need to put that information in a video game review?) with a script by Weber and Michael Robert Johnson (who wrote the screenplay for the 2009 "Sherlock Holmes"), "Late Shift" is intriguing and well-acted, even if subsequent playthroughs show the plot-hole problem with "pick your own" adventures. The script is on-point in any single, linear playthrough. The transitions from one chapter to the next are mostly fluid, even if you can at times tell when scenes are stitched together to form new sequences. The cinematography by Alfie Biddle is top-notch.

In the end, "Late Shift" is something refreshingly different in a sea of conformity. It won't be appeal to everyone, but it really is an excellent full motion video game and a new take on interactive cinema. Your decisions matter far more than in other branching-story games, and it's a compelling story to boot. I'm not sure I see this type of cinematic game becoming more mainstream, but I wouldn't mind watching a good movie end in multiple ways.

Late Shift the Interactive film game

[jesse_nissinen · 5/10 · 7 February 2018]

I have mixed feelings about this game, movie. I feel it could have been a lot more, and it seems the developers are not going to add or fix anything at all. I will start with the good stuff and later point out the flaws and why I rated it a 5 instead of a 8 or 9.

The first playthrough got my heartbeat pumping and palms sweaty, I thought a wrong option would instantly kill me and end the game, as in a Game Over. I got happy with my choices because the movie kept on playing. I must be doing good right? Anyways, I didn't get a happy ending even after my struggle and what I thought were good choices, however the first experience were exciting and fun, I would recommend the game just for this experience.

+ Good acting, and I especially liked the Chinese May-Ling girl.

!SPOILERS! The bad stuff then? Second viewing I went the dark path, protest everything, be mean to everyone you can, beat everyone up just for the fun of it. Any consequences? Basically no. It made NO DIFFERENCE. I wasn't nervous or excited anymore because I knew I couldn't die, every choice goes from A to B and back to A. It gives you an illusion that you are making the choices but they all take you to the same basic movie. And the endings? It advertises as if it has 7 DIFFERENT endings, but in reality it's more like 4 different endings. 2 Same endings with just 1 different sentence spoken. 3 Basically same endings with an alternative small scene. Then a bad ending where you actually die (yes I finally managed to kill my character off, high five!), and one happy ending. There is also a plot hole in the game where you go branch B, where one of your main protagonists DIE, then you continue the movie alone, if you take a wrong turn now it will go back to branch A. Suddenly the game is acting like his best friend is still alive and he tries to save her... but, but, we just saw her die 10 minutes ago?

I don't blame the actors. It had good music, a great cast. However, I do blame the developers and producers for making this decent movie into a lazy 'game'.

Pretty interesting and some good directing

[AvionPrince16 · 5/10 · 30 August 2021]

I Love FMV game because it s very close that what movie can bring to us but have a more interactive part that make the whole game interesting. The story make us wonder what will happen next and the choices make us engaged until the end even if some choices dont make us feel that will not have big changes in the plot, other choices have more consequences. It was my first FMV and clearly not the last one!

Interesting experience; such a promising field.

[anders- · 23 February 2021]

I've always been interested in such interactive stories. Hope it turns out more valorized. I found "Late Shift" a good and solid piece. Nothing to complain about the acting. Actually liked very much the protagonist's. When it comes to the story progression itself and the story context though, I found it a little rushed and unnatural. Wished the mid choices thorought the story had more impact, but I understand all this takes lots of work. In terms of cinematics, from a guy who doesn't get a thing about it, found it nice; really felt like a tv movie. Entertaining indeed.