Reel Review: Midnight Taxi (2024)

“Midnight Taxi” is a mesmerizing microbudget directorial debut that adeptly balances gritty authenticity with dreamlike beauty.

There is something hypnotic about Midnight Taxi.

Maybe it is the low-key music that seems to seep in through a slightly ajar window, or maybe the smooth night-time London streets the black cab glides over. Perhaps it is an empathetic audience response for the driver of that taxi, Eddie (Ladi Emeruwa), who is so stressed out, sleep-deprived, and overworked that his eyelids threaten to fall over his weary eyes at any moment.

The reality, of course, is that the combination of these factors makes Midnight Taxi a dreamlike journey through a city in which everyone except the urban foxes is really asleep.

Sleep plays a key role in the story. A night shift cab driver, Eddie, is consistently robbed of his daytime snooze by construction outside his studio apartment. Needing the money to survive, however, he persists, each night picking up fares and giving a lift to a frosty Rachel (Charlotte Price), the daughter of Eddie’s friend who passed away in an accident.

One night, however, he wakes from one of his frequent power naps to see a woman lying on the road in front of his cab. Hands tied behind her back, when Eddie attempts to take her pulse, he finds that she is long dead and already ice cold. It is the discovery of this body that ignites Eddie’s obsession with finding out what happened to the murdered woman, drawing him into the dangerous world of sex workers and their pimps.

His search is made more difficult by his insomnia and stress, exerting a psychological strain so severe that he is soon questioning whether he might have been involved in the murder himself.

While the narrative offers enough twists and turns to keep the audience engaged, if never enthralled, the show’s real star here is the uncanny London.

It’s a city that overflows with life during the day but, at night, feels like Eddie’s personal possession.

There is plenty of what could be termed ‘London porn’ here (the city is immaculately clean, and iconic locations such as St. Paul’s Cathedral and Tower Bridge look stunning in their nocturnal environment). Yet, one of the major draws is the romance of a cabbie journeying through streets that seem to have been emptied, especially for him.

Adding to the surreal nature of the filming is the stark illumination of night-time London. In a recent Reddit post, the directors claimed they used minimal additional lighting for their exterior scenes, instead relying on the ‘chaotic’ lighting of the city itself. The result is not so much chaotic as buttery smooth and inviting.

Another draw is the interaction between Eddie and those who ride in the back of his taxi.

While some conversations outside the cab can seem a little staged, the majority inside feel natural enough to be believably candid. Filmed through the Plexiglas that divides driver from passenger, with the road mirrored brilliantly beside them, it would be easy for these interactions to feel voyeuristic, but the warmth of Emeruwa and the organic nature of his interactions instead taps into something emotionally raw.

This is no better shown than in the developing relationship between Eddie and the young Rachel, who have been estranged by a shared tragedy but grow more comfortable with each other as the film progresses.

In fact, while it bills itself as a gritty horror that wallows in the filth of London’s underbelly, Midnight Taxi feels more at home in its human drama.

This sense may come from the fact that the ostensibly horrifying world of sex workers is here somewhat sanitized, presenting no real sense of threat, and with its implied violence being limited to a few punches in the gut and the brandishing of an obligatory switchblade.

In combination with the sparkling cleanliness of the city, this undermines the intended moral grime. Still, those open to a little genre overlap will have this deficit remediated with a bit of genuine heart.

While directors Bertie and Samantha Speirs have over a decade of experience working in the industry, Midnight Taxi is their debut feature, made under their own Little Nipper Productions. They describe their film as ‘ultra-low budget,’ and some of the monetary restrictions do present themselves at times in uneven acting, dialogue, and delivery.

Overall, however, this is an admirably well-developed work that maximizes its low budget to deliver a film that, while entirely rooted in real life, feels part of a fantastical, dreamlike world.

Add to that world relatable characters and a soundtrack that excels in crafting a moody ambiance, and you have a movie from two promising directors that deserves your attention.