Jack (Thomas) is driving into the small town of Middleton late at night. Over the drink limit, he is shocked when he hits a person after driving under a bridge. The time is 11:14pm and things are about to go bad all over town.

As Jack finds life getting bizarre, so too do a party of three lads Tim, Mark & Eddie as they drive around trying to set up some anti-social pranks. Meanwhile, across town, Duffy (Hatosy) is trying to scrape up the money to get an abortion for Cheri (Cook) and tries to involve a close friend, Buzzy (Swank) in a crazy scheme. Cheri has got her own plans and problems, including Aaron (Heron). Cheri's father Frank (Swayze) tries to clear up what he thinks is a murder, and while he doesn't realise it yet, Officer Hannagan (Gregg) is going to have his work cut out for him this particular night.

Rarely do cross thread plot lines work in a film, but when they do it becomes a triumph. Recently we have seen Crash win at the Oscars, and before that acclaim for Pulp Fiction. The intersection of people and motives catches the intensity of those films, but adds in huge dollops of black humour to great effect.

Twice characters have trouble getting the same body into a boot, and then there is the unhelpful pet dog who runs off with evidence. There's extortion, an inside robbery, petty vandalism and even an unexpected amputation of a penis. Few of the characters, apart from Norma's (Hershey) unhelpful attempts at help, and poor old Officer Hannagan, have good motives and there are enough cover-ups to fill a cabinet meeting. As each story line heads towards the fateful time, it slowly becomes clear what is about to happen, but there are some fine twists along the way.

Writer-director Marcks has delivered a funny, clever, and hugely enjoyable black comedy. It's surprising that this has been languishing without a distributor since doing the festival round several years ago. Even the opening credits are good, and although questions about the plotline remain unanswered - this is a fine ensemble piece, where no character dominates. Only the heavy hand of fate will leave its mark on all.

This was Marck's first outing as director, so expect him to be in demand from now on.