I'll Sleep When I'm Dead - the title alone averted my eyes in drama section at the video store. It sounds like some obscure late 40s noir out of Fox's back catalog, and with an intense-but-calm look from Clive Owen on the front cover giving it the air of what appears pure homage. As it stands, the film is a revenge-genre picture, but it lacks any of the action of what might be its obvious ancestor, Get Carter, also about a gangster who comes back to town to see after the death of his brother and exact payback on those responsible. In fact, the violence is kept to such a minimum it might disappoint those looking for a nifty sleeper of Owen kicking 'arse' and taking names in a small English underworld.
As it stands it's definitely the opposite of something like the recent Shoot em' up: here Owen is brooding, shaggy with a beard and long coat (the slang used is a "piker" or something like that), who finds out his brother David (Jonathan Rhys Myers) has committed suicide in a bathtub of water. What happened? Signs lead eventually the notorious killer- out of town now for over three years living in a van and working as a lumberjack- to some wealthy bloke (Malcolm McDowell, who is in his own right is as intense-looking-without-doing-much as Owen) who raped David. As this tale of vengeance unfolds, there's some of the old 'trainspotters' about who want Owen back in their gang like old times, others who want him to bury his brother and get out, and some old friends who may or may not help (i.e. Charlotte Rampling).
A lot of this leads to expected terrain, but within these folds of this neo-noir are some interesting allusions to the kind of style of film-making, or at least performance, that one saw in Jean-Pierre Melville's French thrillers. The vibe is more existential, of 'how can this happen, I will do this, I will stew about, etc', which done right can be some of the most compelling cinema imaginable in the right mood and setting. Hodge hasn't crafted any grand work, but there's some more than meets the eye within the limitations of the plot and characters. What it ends up amounting to, through the subtle sensibilities of the material and the nature of grief, is something a little more substantial than the average genre piece, and not just because of the lack of usual violence. Also, as mentioned, Owen has that quality that's similar to Sin City- you know more is going on under the surface, and at first it seems like a 'blank' performance but a more grounded, haunted possibility rests in his eyes and mannerisms.
As it stands it's definitely the opposite of something like the recent Shoot em' up: here Owen is brooding, shaggy with a beard and long coat (the slang used is a "piker" or something like that), who finds out his brother David (Jonathan Rhys Myers) has committed suicide in a bathtub of water. What happened? Signs lead eventually the notorious killer- out of town now for over three years living in a van and working as a lumberjack- to some wealthy bloke (Malcolm McDowell, who is in his own right is as intense-looking-without-doing-much as Owen) who raped David. As this tale of vengeance unfolds, there's some of the old 'trainspotters' about who want Owen back in their gang like old times, others who want him to bury his brother and get out, and some old friends who may or may not help (i.e. Charlotte Rampling).
A lot of this leads to expected terrain, but within these folds of this neo-noir are some interesting allusions to the kind of style of film-making, or at least performance, that one saw in Jean-Pierre Melville's French thrillers. The vibe is more existential, of 'how can this happen, I will do this, I will stew about, etc', which done right can be some of the most compelling cinema imaginable in the right mood and setting. Hodge hasn't crafted any grand work, but there's some more than meets the eye within the limitations of the plot and characters. What it ends up amounting to, through the subtle sensibilities of the material and the nature of grief, is something a little more substantial than the average genre piece, and not just because of the lack of usual violence. Also, as mentioned, Owen has that quality that's similar to Sin City- you know more is going on under the surface, and at first it seems like a 'blank' performance but a more grounded, haunted possibility rests in his eyes and mannerisms.