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Sleepless
Sleepless is an over-the-top, logic defying crime adventure that stars off promisingly but eventually collapses from way too many plot holes you can drive a truck through and nonsensical character motivations
Vincent Downs (Oscar winner Jamie Foxx) and Sean Cass (TI) are Las Vegas vice cops who steal a large shipment of cocaine from a scummy casino owner named Stanley Rubino (Dermot Mulroney) and when the case hits their precinct they offer to investigate in order to cover up their involvement. It's revealed that the cocaine actually belongs to a mob boss named Novak (Scoot McNairy) and when Novak threatens Rubino counters by kidnapping Downs' son. This story gets complicated further by a pair of Internal Affairs officers (Michelle Monaghan, David Harbour) who suspect Downs is dirty and put Downs and his son in even more danger.
This thing actually starts off pretty promisingly. Stories about dirty cops have been around for a long time and some of them, like The Departed and LA Confidential were Oscar winning masterpieces, but this one slips way off the track due to a convoluted screenplay by Andrea Berloff that changes the primary players motivations in the story on a scene by scene basis. Every time we think we've got it figured out who the good cops are and who the dirty ones are, there's another change in the program that we don't see coming and the constant reveals of who is who get to be quite exhausting. Novak is really the only character who we are introduced to who remains the same character from the beginning to the end of the story.
There's just a whole bunch of stuff that happens here that I just didn't get. When Downs plans to deliver the cocaine to get his son back, he doesn't take all of it, he takes a few bricks and stashes the rest of it in a restroom ceiling until he gets his son back. Did he really think that was going to fly? When Monaghan's character finds the cocaine, instead of taking it in as evidence, she stashes it in another part of the casino...why? And when Novak finds out his cocaine is missing, he threatens to kill Rubino? Why's he's going to kill the only guy who has a connection to retrieving the cocaine?
Director Baran bo Odar reveals skill at mounting viable action sequences but when they're supporting a story as nonsensical as this one, they're just meaningless. Foxx and Monaghan work very hard at keeping this silly story watchable and McNairy is terrific as Novak, but Mulroney is miscast. And as ridiculous as this story is, I couldn't believe the end of the movie actually sets up a sequel...seriously?
Sleepless is an over-the-top, logic defying crime adventure that stars off promisingly but eventually collapses from way too many plot holes you can drive a truck through and nonsensical character motivations
Vincent Downs (Oscar winner Jamie Foxx) and Sean Cass (TI) are Las Vegas vice cops who steal a large shipment of cocaine from a scummy casino owner named Stanley Rubino (Dermot Mulroney) and when the case hits their precinct they offer to investigate in order to cover up their involvement. It's revealed that the cocaine actually belongs to a mob boss named Novak (Scoot McNairy) and when Novak threatens Rubino counters by kidnapping Downs' son. This story gets complicated further by a pair of Internal Affairs officers (Michelle Monaghan, David Harbour) who suspect Downs is dirty and put Downs and his son in even more danger.
This thing actually starts off pretty promisingly. Stories about dirty cops have been around for a long time and some of them, like The Departed and LA Confidential were Oscar winning masterpieces, but this one slips way off the track due to a convoluted screenplay by Andrea Berloff that changes the primary players motivations in the story on a scene by scene basis. Every time we think we've got it figured out who the good cops are and who the dirty ones are, there's another change in the program that we don't see coming and the constant reveals of who is who get to be quite exhausting. Novak is really the only character who we are introduced to who remains the same character from the beginning to the end of the story.
There's just a whole bunch of stuff that happens here that I just didn't get. When Downs plans to deliver the cocaine to get his son back, he doesn't take all of it, he takes a few bricks and stashes the rest of it in a restroom ceiling until he gets his son back. Did he really think that was going to fly? When Monaghan's character finds the cocaine, instead of taking it in as evidence, she stashes it in another part of the casino...why? And when Novak finds out his cocaine is missing, he threatens to kill Rubino? Why's he's going to kill the only guy who has a connection to retrieving the cocaine?
Director Baran bo Odar reveals skill at mounting viable action sequences but when they're supporting a story as nonsensical as this one, they're just meaningless. Foxx and Monaghan work very hard at keeping this silly story watchable and McNairy is terrific as Novak, but Mulroney is miscast. And as ridiculous as this story is, I couldn't believe the end of the movie actually sets up a sequel...seriously?