Nice Night for a Murder sees the return of leading man James Dastoli as Sam Cain, a delivery guy for men who are clearly up to no good. This is the second time he's played such a role (third if you count Star Wars universe). But this story takes place when the delivery guy finds that his intended recipient is dead, and he must decide how to come out on top in a sea of dishonest criminals who want in on the action. Pretty much just picture the end of Respectable Employ, but if a hot psycho chick killed Jake Nabel before James got there.

This chick I speak of is Verna Evans, played by Bernadette DeNicola. Bernadette possesses a quality I've never seen before in a Dastoli Digital lead. There's just something off about her that completely allows me to buy her as an unstable femme fatale.

In this outing, James and Robert once again tackle the issue of honor among thieves. Sam claims he's only one big score away from retirement, which is a characteristic Dastolis seem to assign to the characters they want us to root for. In movie after movie full of wise guys, it seems to be the only way of distinguishing the good criminals from the bad ones. However, halfway through the movie, the seemingly untrustworthy Verna Evans claims that she, too, is looking for a way out of this world. The audience, along with Sam, is unsure of her true motives. But, also like Sam, we have little choice but to ride things out and find out the hard way. Distrust is a common theme in these Dastoli crime stories, with Sam delivering lines such as, "How do I know you won't shoot me and take it all for yourself?" I had to go back and re-watch The Drop Off to make sure that line wasn't an exact lift from Tony and Sal's argument (it pretty much was, except this time there is the mention of gunplay).

When James and Robert first arrived at the UCF Film School, there were two DVDs they passed around to all the other kids who wanted to get an idea of their work. One was Under the Gun. The other was this. Most of the people who borrowed them only marveled at the cool helicopters and explosions in Under the Gun, but my brother Alejandro claimed he liked this one better. Now I can see why. At the time of its release, I venture to say that it was their magnum opus, for there were no painful moments of amateurish pacing or disgusting production design.

However, we are still forced to watch the two main characters once again sucking on unlit cigarettes that produce CGI smoke when lit by CGI fire. JAMES. ROBERT. FAKE CIGARETTES WHY.

Here is what the Dastolis have to say about Nice Night for a Murder:

ROBERT:

"Triné had always said that Bernadette should have been the female lead in Mr. Downtown and she would have been in Nice Night for a Murder. I couldn't disagree more, even though Bernadette was originally thought of for the part of Maria in Mr. Downtown. An essential part to making Nice Night for a Murder was that it had to star Bernadette, much the same way that The Black Iris had to star Beth Golub. I think it's unfortunate that we never got a chance to use Bernadette again."

JAMES:

"I wish I had a chance to do Nice Night for a Murder again, because I completely fucked up on the acting. I had the character all wrong and I realize that now."

James, if you should be wishing for a chance to do anything again, it should be the quote for this review, because I have no idea what you're talking about. I hereby request that you post an unprecedented second quote right underneath this, explaining what you got wrong and how you would fix it, given the opportunity.

JAMES:

"Well, what I mean is that I was delivering every line completely stone faced instead of putting some charm into it. Now, some of the lines did work that way, but so many others did not. I also felt that I was too conscious of what my next line would be and it felt like I wasn't even acting opposite her, more acting next to her."

Oh. See, I just thought that was the character.