I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

This story starts with several sets of mostly low life characters in various settings and slowly shows how the characters relate. Davey(Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is the self absorbed party animal, low level drug dealer whose tragic events form the glue to tie the characters together. Will (Clive Owen) first appears as a hard working back to nature recluse, but we soon learn he is Davey's brother. We learn that this morose woodsman was some kind of crime boss. His return to deal with Davey's tragedy kicks off the pivotal events that make up the rest of the movie. What looks at first like several disjointed stories slowly starts tying together. This is not your glorified crime life like the Godfather, or the Sopranos. This story is not about action, it's about how criminals think and feel and act based on those thoughts and feelings. It is a dark world, full of bad choices and painful consequences. It is a somewhat complicated story like these kinds of things are in real life. There are old relationships: loves, friends, enemies that must be dealt with in a time when emotion is hard to control. If you want something fast, are looking for clear cut plots, and easily understood characters you will be disappointed. I personally like movies sometimes that are not afraid to break with clear cut formulas and don't feel compelled to explain everything in clear terms. I found the movie very intriguing. This is a movie about how characters, in this case, criminals, process tragic events. These dark characters living in this dark world had to deal with something that was especially dark to them. The story moves slowly because it is not about action, but the dark setting, the subtle effects on the characters as the story progresses and so on. In reality tragic events are often not clear cut, and the movie is real in its development of the story. I found myself feeling for the characters, albeit mostly sadness and a little pity with a little admiration, compassion, and understanding thrown in. If you enjoy film noir I think you might like this film.

I have read through about 20 of the users comments after watching this movie earlier tonight on DVD. Most viewers seem to be rather disappointed with this film mainly because they had expectations of the film based on genre, director's and actors' previous work both of which I have seen very little before. The film had my attention from the beginning till the end and I found it very thought provoking.

Will was a gangster who had turned away from crime after a break down (indication of severe depression?). Sometimes when people get overloaded with negative emotions like guilt they can turn into the total opposite of who they once were. As Will mentioned himself : grief about a wasted life. I think this indicates guilt. He coped by turning his back to the world he knew, but also the person he loved most, his brother Davey whom he therefore was not able to help move away from the crime life.Imagine his anger but also the guilt he must have experienced to find his brother raped and having taking his own life! Another wasted life! He could have done something about that but HAD NOT because he ran away from life. In the interactions with former associates and ex-girl friend Helen he established who he had become. Also showing them that they played no role in his life anymore, emotional or otherwise. For his brother who was still important to him he was not able to do anything anymore (and unable via police) except to come up for him by discovering the reason for his death and revenging it. The only way to do that was to take on his former identity again, because the new Will could not do that. Imagine the horror that his brother was hated for behaving the way he himself had before his departure. (Of course this is never a valid reason to rape someone! Rape is hideous crime!) Charming, but cocksure and arrogant!! For Davey Will had always been his role model!!! Davey never got to know the new (more real?) Will. Instead he had lived like Will basing his self-esteem on Will's former reputation as well. Fancy the pain of discovering that! By shooting Boad he kills himself; by intensifying the guilt which had taken over his life. This was exactly as Helen predicted when she said that he was not getting out of it because he wanted to die himself! Nor Clive Owen or Charlotte Rampling acted stiffly out of incompetence, but merely because it was required for their roles of people who had died emotionally a long time ago already! I have greatly enjoyed this movie. It made me think deeply about emotions, motivations an behavior. The above is my interpretation of these, (which doesn't mean I am right).

This is a great movie laden with enigmatic style. A modern, gritty film noir with a powerful and restrained performance by Clive Owen. Compared to other contemporary gangster movies, this one does without cheap action and unmotivated aspects of humor. This is a film taking itself and its moviegoers seriously. The pace and rhythm of the movie and great cinematography accentuates the underlying and half hidden aspects of the script, Clive Owen's acting really proves here that less is more. This movie is indeed one of the two best crime movies to come out of Britain around the turn of the millennium, the other being, of course, "Sexy Beast". These films both combine great style, magnetic performances from the currently best British actors, compelling story lines and sense of warmth emanating from perfectly cast protagonists; Owen and Winstone, respectively.

You'll sleep while it's on

As you might guess, I'm not Clive Owen's biggest fan, having suffered through his woodenly monotonous performances, but I forced myself to see this because Mike Hodges has made some good films in the past (as well as cack like MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE). Sadly, this manages to be even worse than MORONS, a numbingly tedious movie where the semi-comatose leads are at least three hours behind the audience in guessing the plot. The shock revelation was obvious from the start and Hodges never makes you interested in getting there. He's not helped by his cast. They're either overacting like McDowell or Meyers or totally incapable of showing signs of life, like Rampling and Owen. Even before it was invented Rampling has always looked like she's had too much botox, but inexperienced filmgoers might think she'd OD'd here she's so stiff. Her expression doesn't change from its deathmask once. Owen is more hopeless than usual, shuffling through like a zombie from a cheap George Romero ripoff. He still can't act and his vocal performance is still like a bored photocopier salesman demonstrating some clapped out machine with one eye on the clock for the pub's opening.

Contrary to other posters, it's not thoughtful or atmospheric. The plot is obvious, the characters infantile. There's no depth, no ideas, just a dragging running time to fill out. And it is achingly slow in the doing it. From a first-timer this picture would have been laughed out of the office at script stage it's so empty and predictable.

British audiences shunned the film (as they did CROUPIER) but Americans might just mistake his accent for a performance. But for the rest of us, it's another pitiful performance in the dullest British gangster film of the past twenty years. That's quite an achievement, but it's the film's only one.

If you really want to see a good new British revenge movie, check out Dead Man's Shoes instead - that really is the business. This is just a photocopy of a photocopy.

After the suicide of the small time drug dealer and thief Davey (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), his brother and former powerful gangster Will Graham (Clive Owen), who is living a peaceful recluse life trying to redeem himself from his past, returns to his homeland to investigate the motives for such desperate act. Will hires an independent autopsy and the coroner informs that Davey had been raped the night before his death. Will returns to his past life seeking for revenge.

"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" is a deceptive thriller with an absolute absence of originality. In spite of having a great cast leaded by Clive Owen, Charlotte Rampling, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Malcolm McDowell, and a beautiful and stylish cinematography, the screenplay is very weak and confused, with a storyline similar to many other better movies. The characters are badly developed, and who they are and their motives are disclosed in a confused way. Further, the motives of Boad for the stupidity against Davey are unbelievably ridiculous. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil):" Vingança Final" ("Final Revenge")