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.
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2004)
Tomatometer
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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
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Reviews for I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
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.
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.
... Hodges is the kind of director who can breathe new life into old material with an offhand, deceptively minimalist approach.
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.
Matching the movie's restrained style, Owen is extraordinarily still, and all the more riveting because of it.
This is a movie that will put ADD sufferers to sleep, while simultaneously rewarding those who have the patience to see it through.
This is Owen's picture. He broods, he seethes, he plots. Sometimes he even speaks, but it's not necessary. One glance from Will is enough to send chills down anyone's spine.
Precisely the kind of film that should be seen by insomniacs at some ungodly hour of the night. (The title itself supports this theory.)
...the sort of showcase for Owen that `earned' him the dead-end job of `King Arthur.'
...continually thwarts genre expectations with its somber, thoughtful treatment of the brutal subject matter.
In the end, it is the complex aura surrounding Owen's character...that stay with the viewer long after the threads of the story have unraveled in one's mind.
This one's more about mood than anything else. Specifically, it's that gritty, sleek, film noir feeling that Hodges seems drawn to, and which this film delivers in spades.
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 66% 66% | Public Enemies |
| 83% 83% | Harry Potter and the H… |
| 44% 44% | Night at the Museum: B… |
| 75% 75% | Julie & Julia |
| 32% 32% | Terminator Salvation |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 90% 90% | District 9 |
| 86% 86% | 500 Days of Summer |
| 63% 63% | Extract |
| 06% 06% | All About Steve |
| 78% 78% | It Might Get Loud |
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