Film Review: Interactive Film ‘Late Shift’ Lets Audiences Influence the Fate of Its Characters9 min read
Reading Time: 7 minutesMatt, a smart student, has to prove his innocence after being forced into the robbery of a famous London auction house. How will the audience decide to act when everything is turning against him? The audience takes decisions for the interactive thriller’s hero while the movie keeps on running seamlessly.
Director: Tobias Weber
Cast: Joe Sowerbutts, Haruka Abe, Joel Basman, Lily Travers
Year: 2021
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Runtime: Up to 97 mins
Trailer:
Choose-your-own-adventures have been staples in the video game world for decades. 2018’s Bandersnatch pushed the format to newfound prominence on Netflix. Golden Village looks to further bridge the gap between video games and film with their exclusive screenings of Late Shift, promising to be the “world’s first truly interactive movie experience”.
Originally released in 2017, Late Shift puts players in the shoes of Matt Thompson (Joe Sowerbutts), an unassuming university student and parking lot valet inexplicably thrust into a high-stakes heist involving the criminal underworld. Players will decide how Matt’s night from hell turns out through a series of A or B decisions.
Golden Village’s screenings will not only bring the video game to the big screen, but will also present audiences with a unique experience. Patrons are required to download the “CtrlMovie” app on the Apple/Google app store, where they will be voting for Matt’s choices throughout the film.
Tickets for the experience are available for purchase here. Late Shift beckons to be re-explored with its seven different endings and unexplored paths. Patrons looking to dive back into Matt’s world can get a discounted return ticket $8 (weekday) or $10 (weekend).
A unique experience called for a unique review. We sent two of our writers to separate sessions of Late Shift to detail their experiences.
Matthaeus Choo
I have a soft spot for full-motion video (FMV) games. The genre saw its popularity peak in the 1990s and is a treasure trove for lovers of B movies. Cheesy special effects, hammy acting and tons of quotable lines are almost a given with these games.
FMVs saw a brief resurgence in the late 2010s. While some entries have retained the genre’s hokeyness, most, such as Late Shift, have looked to shed their roots. Bringing this experience to theatres, with whole audiences being in control of choices, feels like the next natural step.
Perhaps it is due to my prior experiences with FMVs but I didn’t expect Late Shift to be as cinematic as it is. While the interactive movie is rough around the edges, it still tells a compelling story of an ordinary man being thrown into an extraordinary adventure. Awkward pauses to make room for choice selection are unavoidable but edits are clean enough to make the overall experience polished. The worldbuilding here is surprisingly deep, almost begging for a sequel or, at least, a rewatch to experience all the twists and turns the movie has to offer.
Audience participation didn’t feel like a gimmick. It was a unique experience, to say the least. The Matt in my screening went from a meek boy unable to shoo away a man asking for directions to an action hero running from the law. There were plenty of chuckles whenever we made Matt the jerk in every situation.
This path, however, does expose actor Joe Sowerbutts’ range in the role. Despite swearing up a storm, he never felt convincing while intimidating seasoned criminals and gang leaders. He is just a gangly university student and it’s funny how these characters fold from his empty threats. It doesn’t help that Matt is such a milquetoast name. Late Shift feels like a fantasy Matt probably dreamed up while sleeping on his job.
A major audience reaction came with the film’s inconclusive ending. Exclamations of confusion soundtracked the film’s credits. It seemed like an ironic problem to have. Perhaps if Late Shift felt more like a game, the sudden game over wouldn’t feel as jarring. Yet, it’s exactly because Late Shift felt more like a film where the reaction becomes warranted. If anything else, it’s a signal that the story got the audience invested too.
A feedback floating around has been the short response time for choices. I personally didn’t run into any issues, other than the slight panic when my phone couldn’t connect to the film after accidentally exiting the app. Yet another departure from the usual cinema experience is how it will be necessary to keep your phone screen on while watching Late Shift.
Just how far each choice can affect the story is uncertain but with seven possible endings and (implied) branching paths galore, Late Shift will definitely make for fun conversations between attendees of two separate shows. This does bring up an elephant in the room. It will cost more to experience Late Shift in the cinema than to own Late Shift on your phone or computer. Given that the tickets were provided to us, I can’t make an objective call. Although I can note that every other participant in my screening were couples, which might make playing/watching Late Shift a fantastic idea for date night.
Nevertheless, I left the experience excited and wanting more — not just of the same film but similar ones in the future. Late Shift represents a clear and optimistic work-in-progress. Future interactive movies will have to double down on eliciting audience reactions. Perhaps through tense horror plots where every decision could make the difference between life and death. Or even romantic comedies where the lead could either be a suave casanova or a bumbling dork.
Kiu Qingru
Late Shift was originally released as a choose-your-own-path video game before it was adapted for the big screen by game studio CtrlMovie. Upon entering the cinema, viewers are prompted to download the CtrlMovie mobile application and then scan a QR code that tells the app which screening they are watching.
Choose-your-own-path video games have a tendency to make audiences feel like their choices matter more than they actually do. These games often give you options that do not have any impact on the main plot of the story but still seem important enough to make players feel like their actions matter. At the start of the film, it seemed as though Late Shift may have taken this same approach.
After choosing our options, our protagonist Matt voices his preferences for one choice over another almost as if the audience is condemned for picking the choice that Matt himself would not. Fortunately, this issue goes away as the film progresses and the movie’s focus moves away from Matt’s inner monologue and towards the action that is happening on screen.
The movie does dabble a bit into the theme of choices and freedom, which is explored in Matt’s train of thoughts. This feels quite meta in the format of the film and can cross into the territory of being too on the nose. It still does act as a reminder to the audience that their choices matter and should not be taken lightly.
The film has seven different endings, although it does not make it obvious which specific choices will affect the ending, nor does it make it obvious which options will lead to a good ending and which will lead to a bad ending. This definitely prevents the film from becoming predictable and allows us to feel just as on-edge and nervous as our protagonist.
The cinemagoers in my screening enjoyed living life vicariously through Matt. We had a tendency to pick the more dangerous options. However, there were times when we were torn between the options. Based on the audience’s reactions, we could gauge how many people disagreed with the option that won the popular vote. At times we could even hear people persuading others to pick specific options.
This was a good sign of audience engagement and most viewers seemed to be enjoying the ability to choose the route that the story was taking. This is definitely a big selling point of the film and, in that sense, I believe it succeeded in achieving the interactivity it set out to give its audiences.
In terms of its plot, the film follows a typical heist structure with plenty of twists and turns. The further into the depths of the criminal underworld that our protagonist falls into, the more audiences were left wondering how he was going to climb his way out unscathed.
More enemies appeared around every corner and it seemed impossible for someone who was just a university student to outrun and outsmart everyone on his tail. This set us up for a grand ending that we were hoping would tie up every loose end. The film had already established Matt to be an incredibly intelligent student, so it seemed like he would have some genius plan up his sleeves. We were all sitting on the edge of our seats and waiting for the big finale where all the suspense would bring us to an intense climatic moment and our protagonist would come out triumphant.
Of the seven possible endings, there are some happier endings and some not so happy endings. We ended up with perhaps the worst ending of the seven and there was no pay off for us. It was slightly anti-climatic and the story felt like it ended very abruptly. Although the entire film escalated very quickly, the ending was on a whole different level. By the end, Matt seemed like a completely different character from the valet attendant we met at the start of the film.
There were certainly moments when we could have chosen wiser options but our choices ultimately led us to this ending. Having chosen some pretty bad options, maybe our screening got the ending we deserved. I am inclined to believe that this is also the film’s way of encouraging us to rewatch it again to try for a different outcome.
Disclaimer: Sinema.SG was provided tickets for the two screenings we attended.
Late Shift is now screening exclusively at GV Funan, GV Plaza, and GV Suntec City. Grab your tickets now on GV’s website.
