Overnight (2004)

Anyone who has ever spent five minutes dreaming about what it might be like to become a famous Hollywood director will experience a heady sense of schadenfreude watching the be-careful-what-you-wish-for-especially-if-you're-a-flaming-a--hole documentary Overnight. In 1997, Troy Duffy was working as a Los Angeles bartender when he sold a script to Miramax. He became the hottest name in the business — for five minutes. Hired to direct his movie, The Boondock Saints, at a budget of $15 million (that's more than it cost to make Pulp Fiction or Good Will Hunting), Duffy, a cluelessly abrasive braggart who resembles a beady-eyed Carson Daly, proceeded to fulfill the role of It Boy Indie Filmmaker by shooting off his mouth, hanging out in hipster bars with Jake Busey and Patrick Swayze, and convincing himself he was king of the world. He alienated all the real players, and Overnight catches his noisy petty-egomaniac fall — the desperate calls to Harvey, the drunken nights and dissing of Keanu, the whole persecution complex masquerading as ''attitude.'' I do wish that Overnight caught in more precise detail what Duffy, who finally made his film on the cheap at an obscure studio, did to tick off the Miramax powers. Imagining it, though, is half the fun.

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