This crime drama has some decent atmospheric settings and touches, but the rest of the movie is far too dreary to be satisfying. Most of the story concerns Tom Buchan, a journalist who wants to get the life story of Gino, a notorious crime boss. The two hide out together in an abandoned theater and make plans for Gino's getaway, while Gino tells Buchan about his life. They use a naive young boy to send messages to those outside. The abandoned building setting is done pretty well, and is quite suitable to the story. There is also some rather good use of lighting and other detail to set an appropriate tone.
Unfortunately, most of the rest of the movie is just not very good at all. The biggest problem is with the characters. The journalist is supposed to be the hero, but he is self-centered, irresponsible, vain, and not nearly as clever as he (or the script-writer) thinks he is. The rest of the characters are either offensive brutes or are inexcusably foolish. The generally weak, stale dialogue doesn't make things any better. The story itself has some interesting features, but moves too slowly, and without any worthwhile characters to follow, there are many drab and lifeless stretches. The climactic sequence does hold some drama, and could have been quite good - but all the characters are such losers that there just isn't any reason to care about what happens to them, so the climax loses much of its impact.
There are some good features to "Escape By Night", and it could have been a much better movie with better characters and writing. But as it stands, there is really no reason to watch it unless you are a big fan of any and all crime/gangster movies, regardless of their quality.
