Nina is the voluptuously alluring girlfriend of Johnny, a charming but delusional crook.
To escape from her weary life she casually sleeps with an old friend, Teddy, but is fed up of her current lifestyle especially the drunken dreams of Johnny. One night after an argument with Johnny, she storms home where she is abducted by a pair of thugs and is fortunatley rescued by a timid and guilt-ridden girl, Monella.
Even though they are from two very different worlds, they quickly become close friends and sooth each other lives.

Director David Noel Bourke already brought us Last Exit, which was a small and smart indie movie.  No right turn is a bit more ambitious and hires Eric Witzgall for its cinematography. He gave the film its brilliant specific color tone, which depends on the scene. Some kind of sepia for the amateur of old trains, red/blue/green for night places and warm wood colors for the apartement of Nina and Johnny. Bourke is a curious European blend of David Lynch, John Dahl and Quentin Tarantino. He makes me think of Lynch because of the beautiful eerie pictures. As in Last Exit, the director just loves to describe cut throat bad enlightened streets. He also likes to shoot scenes taking place in night clubs and bars. This whole “nightlife” world, with raw colors and neon lights, seems to seduce him. Thanks to these atmospheres, he captures the mood of the wandering souls that pretend to be happy using drugs and alcohol although they just have a pathetic life.

Now Tarantino because of two things. First, Bourke lengthily depicts the everyday life of his characters with the help of fancy dialogues. It tends to establish an emotional bond between the audience and the characters on screen. The movie mainly relies on the two lead actresses Sira Stampe (Monella) and Laura Bach (Nina). They have a special gaze, and if they’re beautiful and sexy, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a deep personality. I think their portrait is the main success of the movie. We are seduced by these femme fatale and just believe in those two characters.The first one is a kind of classy blonde who’s looking for a brighter future. The other one has a disturbed mind and a dark past. We can like or be somewhat bored by this long exposure as we go from a character to another without any transition in the story . One weakness of the movie most certainly comes from the writer character. We don’t really see the meaning of his presence. He lives near an old locomotive and several scenes just focus on him and we don’t why. Well, until the end where we happen to know what part he’s truely playing in the plot.

And like in Tarantino movies, violence can spurs from anywhere at anytime. Let’s not spoil the surprise but some trashy scenes occur from time to time ! Bad taste surprises just come up without a warning.

Whereas there’s no strong plot during the first hour, a certain tension is created and allows us to be interested in the characters depicted. Then we go for a classic betrayal intrigue. That’s where John Dahl comes up. The end of the movie is a bit expected (well not the end after the end). It looks like John Dahl movies of the 90’s where everybody manipulates everybody and you just don’t know who’s going to be the cleverest.

On the overall, No right turn, as an independent film, doesn’t want to please its audience absoluetly. The fact is the movie is kind of personal and David Noel Bourke just wants to share what he usually likes. We would pompously call that an author’s vision. Just when it tends to get boring, it goes on with a thriller plot, that has been seen before but which remains entertaining. But what fully won my attention was the kind of 80’s pulp look and the ambiguous relationship between Nina and Monella.

Official Site : www.lastexitproductions.dk