Synopsis
A nebbish of a morgue attendant gets shunted back to the night shift where he is shackled with an obnoxious neophyte partner who dreams of the "one great idea" for success. His life takes a bizarre turn when a prostitute neighbor complains about the loss of her pimp. His partner, upon hearing the situation, suggests that they fill that opening themselves using the morgue at night.
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Cast
- Henry WinklerChuck Lumley
- Michael KeatonBill Blazejowski
- Shelley LongBelinda Keaton
- Gina HechtCharlotte Koogle
- Pat CorleyEdward Koogle
- Bobby Di CiccoLeonard
- Nita TalbotVivian
- Basil HoffmanDrollhauser
- Tim RossovichLuke
- Clint HowardJefferey
Recommendations
- 90
Washington Post
The largest shares of credit for this pleasant surprise evidently belong to director Ron Howard--whose assurance behind the camera may come as a revelation to people still associating him with the roles of little Opie on "The Andy Griffith Show" and clean-cut Richie on "Happy Days". - 80
Variety
Though the plotline hardly sounds like a family film, this is probably the most sanitized treatment of pimps and prostitution audiences will ever see. None of this much matters, because director Ron Howard and screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, all TV veterans, are only bent on giving the audience a good time. - 80
Washington Post
Michael Keaton's the live wire and Henry Winkler's the deadbeat in director Ron Howard's new hit, Night Shift, a whorifying undertaking that solicits its laughs by pairing the quick and the dead. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Ron Howard's direction is carefully balanced, and he treats his characters with humanity and respect. Winkler turns in the best performance of his career, and Keaton is wonderful. - 70
Chicago Reader
This isn't as snappily directed or as caustically conceived as the subsequent Risky Business, which has a similar theme, but it's arguably just as sexy and almost as funny. - 70
Time Out
Likeable. - 60
The New Yorker
This isn't much of a movie but it manages to be funny a good part of the time anyway. - 50
The New York Times
This is a halfway funny movie, one that's got loads of good gags in its first half and nothing but trouble in its second.
