Blair Loveday
During the 2000’s Clive Owen was killing it.
I remember watching banger after banger of his, and when our flatmates would rent a DVD, if Clive Owen was on the cover we almost certainly checked it out. It turns out that right before excellent movies like Inside Man and Children of Men, Clive Owen had starred in an interesting crime film called I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.
I’m not sure if my local Video Ezy didn’t have a copy or what, but now with the Bluray release I was able to check this one out.
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead follows Will (played by Clive Owen) who returns to London to look into what happened to his brother Davey.
Davey has made a decent little living selling cocaine to rich people. One day Davey is captured and raped by an enigmatic figure played by Malcolm McDowell. Davey then goes home and kills himself.
After this Will is contacted to come back to London. It turns out Will used to be a major member of the underbelly but he has spent the last few years working out in the wilderness doing manual labor. His return makes a bunch of people nervous, and when it is discovered his brother was raped, Will decides to get revenge.
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead sounds like it could be pretty action heavy, but it isn’t.
It is very much more of a crime thriller as Will investigates this crime. The movie builds tension through minimal dialogue at times, but one of the issues it has is it gets bloody slow at times. I don’t mind characters with minimal dialogue but the plot needs to keep up to keep you engaged. It just drags so much at times.
The plot at times bounces from really interesting, to not totally sure what’s going on. It really feels like they had cut some time from it this could have been a much tighter, much tenser movie.
I definitely still recommend checking out I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.
It’s a decent movie with an amazing cast who are all excellent in their roles. The Blu-Ray comes with a great half hour documentary on the film which is well worth a watch afterwards. It might not be the best movie but it’s still well worth your time.
