There are shadows on top of shadows. It's the film noir universe, all right. What does the title refer to? Perhaps to what you will enjoy during the film.
The Perfect Sleep (2009)
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Reviews Counted:11
Fresh:4
Rotten:7
Average Rating:4.4/10
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for violence, some language and brief drug use.for violence, some language and brief drug use.
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Mar 13, 2009 Limited
Synopsis:
Think of the hard-boiled world of film noir: the world of Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, a world of femme fatales, a world of shadows. Now imagine this world populated with characters from tragic...
Think of the hard-boiled world of film noir: the world of Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, a world of femme fatales, a world of shadows. Now imagine this world populated with characters from tragic Russian novels like those by Dostoevsky: tormented figures suffering through harsh circumstance. This unique world provides the foundation for the dark and vivid dreamscape of The Perfect Sleep.
In a timeless city, a man with no name returns to the violent, brutal domain of assassins he left ten years before – back when they dubbed him The Mad Monk for his disregard for his own life and his intense devotion to one woman, Porphyria; a beautiful, luminescent woman; the girl he grew up with; the love of his life; the one thing he has ever wanted; the one thing he can never have.
There is no discernible reason for him to come back to this ruthless city, save one. She still lives here, she is in danger, and he – a man gifted in the art of killing – may be the only one who can save her. Waiting for him are deadly men who would like nothing more than to see him die a painful death. Standing at their forefront is the formidable Nikolai, the man who raised him and just might be his father.
To protect Porphyria, this unnamed man will return to a life of torment and torture. He will face off against the father figure he turned his back on so many years ago. He will revisit this existence full of people imprisoned by their desire, their history, and their very blood; a world where the only thing keeping you from happiness is yourself, the world of The Perfect Sleep.
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Starring: Roselyn Sanchez, Anton Pardoe, Patrick Bauchau, Peter J. Lucas
Starring: Roselyn Sanchez, Anton Pardoe, Patrick Bauchau, Peter J. Lucas, Tony Amendola, Sam Thakur, Dominique Vandenberg, Cameron Daddo
Director: Jeremy Alter
Director: Jeremy Alter
Screenwriter: Anton Pardoe
Producer: Jeremy Alter, Keith Kjarval, Anton Pardoe
Composer: David Vanian
Studio: Cinema Epoch
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Release:
Jun 16, 2009
Reviews for The Perfect Sleep
Well-directed with exquisite visuals, but suffers from an often dull, convoluted and confusing plot as well as too much style over substance.
Nothing makes much sense in this ridiculously high minded narrative, but the emptiness is brimming with intensity and attitude, along with some inspired night vision footage and dialogue delivered as over the top self-serious soundbites.
Easy on the eyes but brutal on the ears, The Perfect Sleep fuses Shakespearean tragedy and noir iconography into a strange, lovely, leaden ball of confusion.
The disjointed story is no more comprehensible than The Big Sleep. Though Alter is no Howard Hawks and Pardoe and Sanchez are no Bogie and Bacall, this movie looks great. You won't nap through The Perfect Sleep.
Style significantly trumps substance in The Perfect Sleep, a good-looking but convoluted homage to film noir, Russian literature and Shakespearean tragedy, among a few too many other things.
Unfortunately, Alter's often inventive work is kneecapped by a deliriously nonsensical script, which misses the mark as both over-the-top parody and straight-faced homage, and could have been intended as either.
An undeniably odd mixture of 80% noir, 15% action, and 5% random homage. I dug it.
The well-chosen supporting cast also deliver with especially sharp turns from Sanchez, Bauchau and Amendola who act this script as if it were Shakespeare.
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