Click to read the article
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2004)
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work ![]()
Reviews Counted:85
Fresh:36
Rotten:49
Average Rating:5.5/10
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for language, a rape scene, violent images and brief drug use
Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Jun 16, 2004 Limited
Box Office: $212,359
Synopsis: Cars full of fast-talking British hoods and rain-soaked city streets in the dead of night--that's the stuff of which Mike Hodges's (CROUPIER) impossibly cool neo-noir gangster thriller is made.... Cars full of fast-talking British hoods and rain-soaked city streets in the dead of night--that's the stuff of which Mike Hodges's (CROUPIER) impossibly cool neo-noir gangster thriller is made. Clive Owen plays Graham, a former top mobster who has since retired to a nomadic life in the woods. His little brother Davey (John Rhys-Davies) meanwhile swaggers through posh parties back in the city, dealing drugs and engaging in freewheeling sex and petty thefts until he's violently sodomized by a white-haired car dealer (Malcolm McDowell). His subsequent suicide brings Graham back into the seedy underworld he left behind on a mission of revenge. Before he can find his brother's rapist though, he has to tangle with the new head bad boy in town (Frank Stott), who thinks Graham's come to take his old spot back. Much like Simon Fisher Turner's dissonant, avante-jazz score, the film dodges a straight-ahead story and instead breaks out in moody variations in the key of noir. Fatalistic dialogue, extreme masculine anxiety, a cast teeming with eccentrics, desolate streets, gray beaches, darkened elevators, and foreboding alleyways all blend into an atonal crime-jazz poem. The inestimable Charlotte Rampling plays Graham's concerned, and much older, ex-girlfriend. Fans of the more classic gangster entries may rest assured Graham eventually does rain violence down upon the deserving. [More]
Starring: Clive Owen, Jonathan Rhys-Myers, Malcolm McDowell, Charlotte Rampling
Starring: Clive Owen, Jonathan Rhys-Myers, Malcolm McDowell, Charlotte Rampling, Frank Stott
Director: Mike Hodges
Director: Mike Hodges
Screenwriter: Trevor Preston
Producer: Michael Corrente, Michael Kaplan
Composer: Simon Fisher Turner
Studio: Paramount Classics
Get This Movie
Reviews for I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
The intermittently violent film, set in the London underworld, reeks of incoherence and disappointment.
Revenge is a dish served again and again in the movies, and connoisseurs will note the special British flavor that Mike Hodges brings to the table.
Does the film work? All I know is that it stays in my mind for its ambitiously autumnal essence, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea.
...while...a solid entry in its genre, it suffers in comparison to both Croupier and Get Carter.
Undone by murky motivations, rhythmless dialogue that often sounds like treatise dissertations, a particularly unpleasant (and unconvincing) homophobic subtext and a stonewall lead performance from the usually charismatic Owen.
Perhaps a little too slow and not much of a payoff, but this latest from the infrequent Mike Hodges will do until he's ready for another.
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead deftly traces the sad, steady pulse just under the skin of things . . . the lingering images etching out their own fitting epitaph.
Mood and portent can conceal any number of flaws in movies about the thug life.
Stylish filmmaking and philosophical musings can only disguise a lack of movement for so long. The trouble with I'll Sleep When I'm Dead is that it's already dead...
... Hodges is the kind of director who can breathe new life into old material with an offhand, deceptively minimalist approach.
Even Clive Owen can't bring the level of this movie up from an average revenge flick.
Owen has some very un-Bond-like accessories here -- a hillbilly beard, a sleeping bag, a chainsaw -- but his commanding performance keeps I'll Sleep solid.
Only after they take off in their car does Will step forward, then stand over the victim, looming and gloomy.
Hodges and Preston have a commendable attitude, but with the thin story and shallow characters, even the right idea doesn't seem as interesting as it should be.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| 36% 36% | Angels & Demons |
| 95% 95% | Star Trek |
| 25% 25% | Four Christmases |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 88% 88% | Inglourious Basterds |
| 78% 78% | The Hangover |
| 49% 49% | Taking Woodstock |
| 26% 26% | The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard |
| 47% 47% | The Girl From Monaco |
RT On Current TV
DIRECTV 358 | Comcast 107 | DISH Network 196 | More...
What’s Hot On RT
Other News
CloseSponsored Links
Around The Network
- I'll Sleep When I'm Dead at Rotten Tomatoes
- I'll Sleep When I'm Dead at IGN
- I'll Sleep When I'm Dead at AskMen
Fresh Links
Featured

Techland lists the best Sci-Fi films of this decade.

Moviefone takes a look back at the biggest stinkers of the past 10 years.

The Me and Orson Welles star answers reader questions on TIME.com.

Hollywood.com's C. Robert Cargill offers his thoughts on what the best decade for film was.

In the AV Club's "Scenic Routes," Mike D'Angelo reminisces about the Tim Burton film.
Promos

Get the latest Tomatometer updates on upcoming movies!



Top Critic


