Movie Review: MIDNIGHT TAXI

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: July 26th, 2024 / 01:10 AM

MIDNIGHT TAXI movie poster | ©2024 Slated

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Ladi Emeruwa, Charlotte Price, Eddie Eyre, Amerjit Deu, Miki Davis, Nathan Turner, Tom Gordon
Writers: Bertie Speirs & Samantha Speirs
Directors: Bertie Speirs & Samantha Speirs
Distributor: Slated
Release Date: July 23, 2024 (VOD, digital)

In MIDNIGHT TAXI, we meet licensed London cab driver Eddie Carter (Ladi Emeruwa). Eddie works nights, which suits him. He’s good at his job, has “the knowledge” (the memorization of the placement of every street in London required of all licensed cabbies), regularly cleans his vehicle, and is courteous to his fares.

But Eddie suffers from sleep disorders and is permanently weary. He takes brief naps in his cab, using his phone to set an alarm.

One night, Eddie sets the alarm for a twenty-minute nap. When he wakes up, there’s a dead woman in the road in front of him. She is dressed as a sex worker and has a gag in her mouth.

Reasonably enough, Eddie calls the police. They arrive, determine that Eddie isn’t a suspect, and release him.

But Eddie can’t let the incident go. He begins trying to find out the victim’s identity – and has dreams that cause him to fear that he may have killed the woman in a fugue state. Hoping to prove his own innocence to himself, Eddie delves deeper and deeper into what may have happened, and whether he or someone else is responsible.

Writers/directors Bertie Speirs (who also serves as the excellent cinematographer) & Samantha Speirs have a great sense of environment and good dialogue. “You drive a two-ton weapon” is a wise observation that anyone behind a wheel should take to heart.

Emeruwa is so personable and magnetic that we’re inclined to follow Eddie through his beautifully-filmed journey through the nighttime rabbit hole.

A mixed blessing with MIDNIGHT TAXI is that the filmmakers and Emeruwa are so skillful and empathetic in depicting Eddie’s fatigue that we start to share it; this may not be a movie to watch, or at least complete, right before bedtime.

There are also some distracting issues. One of these is that, if we accept the possibility that Eddie may be the killer, then either he managed to get out of the cab, overpower, gag and kill the woman and then get back into the cab to wake up to his alarm, all in twenty minutes, or else the filmmakers are playing with our and Eddie’s sense of time. In trying to figure out which (if either) of these it is, we start looking for clues in the wrong places.

Likewise, everybody keeps asking Eddie why he’s so obsessed with finding out what happened to the dead woman. These people seem oddly insensitive to the likelihood that many people who wake up from a nap to find a recently-murdered corpse directly in front of them might have persistent questions.

We have a few more questions of our own by the climax, but these can’t be discussed without major spoilers.

The casting is strong, with Charlotte Price making a solid impression as the slowly thawing university student daughter of Eddie’s late best friend. Eddie Eyre is on target as Eddie’s buddy and fellow cabbie, Amerjit Deu has the right mixture of gravitas and humor as a journalist, and Miki Davis scores as a sex worker would rather Eddie stop investigating and go home.

For viewers who love visiting London via the cinema and/or enjoy good company in the form of a fine actor, MIDNIGHT TAXI should be appealing. Those craving a fully thought-out murder mystery may find it less satisfying.

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