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 here
is a telling scene in the documentary
"Overnight" when Troy Duffy, the
documentary's star, is discussing the fate of his
band with his bandmates, wherein he uses the word
"we" a lot. What we will come to know
about this man named Troy Duffy is that, in his
world, the word "we" actually means
"I". As in, "I know what I'm doing,
I'm smarter than you, we're here because of me,
and if you don't listen to me, then go screw
yourself, you talentless hacks." Flushed with
signs of success, the bandmates go along with
Duffy's delusional ideas, just as they went along
with kicking sand in the face of two of their
buddies when Duffy declared them to be worthless.
Those two men, Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith,
would go on to assemble a documentary called
"Overnight", about the rise and fall of
one Troy Duffy.
"Overnight" begins
with newspaper headlines trumpeting the overnight
celebrityhood of Troy Duffy, a
Boston
expatriate who found himself in
L.A.
tending bar, when his first screenplay, "The
Boondock Saints", is snapped up by
Miramax heavyweight Harvey Weinstein for a cool
$300,000. Weinstein is so enamored with Duffy that
he doesn't just give the neophyte filmmaker a
chance to direct his very first movie, but he
hands him a $15 million dollar budget and offers
to buy the bar that Duffy was working in as a
co-owner. Alas, it isn't long before the brash
Duffy, brimming with the kind of arrogance usually
reserved for people who have actually achieved
something, gets on Weinstein's bad side, and soon
Duffy becomes a pariah in
Hollywood
. But if you think this will damper Duffy's
steadfast belief in his own greatness, you are
sadly mistaken.
Eventually Duffy gets the
money to make "The Boondock Saints",
though with a much, much smaller budget. The film
itself would go on to bomb in
Cannes
and get a minor run in theaters before being sent
to video, where it would become a minor cult hit
with the young set. But it's Duffy's trials and
tribulations with his bandmates, his brother
Taylor, and the man's uncanny ability to lift
himself into the clouds while crushing everyone
around him into the dirt that is most fun to
watch. It isn't as if Duffy doesn't have any
talent, as "The Boondock Saints" is
actually a pretty good B-action/adventure, but to
witness Duffy go about burning every bridge
imaginable in a neverending tirade of profanity
and self-congratulatory monologue is something to
behold.
Surely, one thinks, a man
can't be this full of himself. One would be wrong.
To be sure, there's a little
shaudenfreud going on here, as anyone who spends 5
minutes with Troy Duffy (in real life or onscreen)
will no doubt be wishing for the man's inevitable
downfall. They won't have long to wait, as just as
quickly as he rises to the top, Duffy hits rock
bottom. Just don't tell him that. Duffy swiftly
turns every roadblock into another declaration of
his brilliance for, as he is fond of saying,
"they" have never seen the likes of him.
In a word, Troy Duffy believes he is God's gift to
existence. No, that's not quite right. Troy Duffy
believes he is
God made human.
It's not that easy to
properly describe a man of Duffy's abrasive
personality, or indeed explain why he's so fond of
denim overalls. Duffy brags that he once got
drunk, woke up, and went to a film meeting in his
overalls while everyone there were wearing suits,
as if this was some kind of victory. He would go
on to remark that Harvey Weinstein
"wishes" he could be like Troy Duffy.
And to be like Troy Duffy is to be blacklisted by
Harvey Weinstein, who apparently is not a man to
be trifled with, especially when he buys your
first script for a ludicrous sum and makes you
famous overnight. Sundance veterans can tell you a
thing or two about Mr. Weinstein's need for public
shows of excess.
There are times when
"Overnight" gets a bit ahead of itself,
especially toward the end when
Montana
and Smith elects to use montages overlaid with
tragic music that gives away the tragedy to come.
The smarter and more veteran move would have been
to allow in natural sound and let the
circumstances unfold in all their train wreck
glory. Sometimes one can almost feel the giddiness
with which the documentary filmmakers unveil
Duffy's downward spiral, with title cards popping
up frequently to contradict Duffy's lofty
expectations for himself, his movie, and his
career. But really, you can't blame
Montana
and Smith for taking a little pleasure from
Duffy's incredible plummet back into obscurity, as
they have suffered mightily under the man's ego.
The thing about a man like
Troy Duffy is that you want him to fail, because
his failure is a sign that the universe is not
cruel, and that indeed, good people do get their
just desserts, and likewise for the more infamous
among us. Troy Duffy certainly falls into the
latter camp, being unlikeable, loud, obnoxious,
and so overwhelming in his narcissism that to see
someone such as he achieve greatness in life would
be to question God's will.
Finally, if you're one of
those people dreaming of making it big in
Hollywood, here is some sound advice for you: If
you ever want to work in Hollywood, whatever you
do, don't -- and I mean, don't -- f*** with Harvey Weinstein. When the man says jump, you
ask, "How high", and then do your best
to meet the goal. And if you should fail to meet
that goal, fall to your knees and apologize. If
you kiss his feet while you're down there,
Harvey
gets all wobbly and human, or so I hear.
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