Sleepless: Eine tödliche Nacht

I watch movies to be entertained, Sleepless definitely did that. While not at the top of its class when it comes to crime action/drama, it had a lot going for it in my opinion. The fight scenes were well done, the scenery was dark but was still able to show off the glitz and glamour that Vegas is known for, and the story-line wasn't half bad. I was expecting to see a bit of Collateral in this, and I feel like that's what I got only with a bit more action and less Tom Cruise.

Don't go in thinking you're going to be seeing some Oscar worthy film, that isn't what this is. If you are expecting to watch a good crime action flick with Jamie Fox kicking ass then you will be happy with what you see.

In Las Vegas, Vincent Downs (Jamie Foxx) and partner Sean Cass (T.I.) steal a shipment of cocaine. They turn out to be police detectives and Vincent volunteers to investigate the battle in the street. Jennifer Bryant (Michelle Monaghan) and Doug Dennison (David Harbour) from Internal Affairs are brought in on the case. Vincent is estranged from his son and his ex Dena Smith (Gabrielle Union) is newly engaged. He is surprised to find out that Stanley Rubino (Dermot Mulroney) and mob-related Rob Novak (Scoot McNairy) are the owners of the drug shipment. Then his son is kidnapped by them.

This is a crime action thriller in the vein of a Michael Mann movie. There are some good action with one particularly fun fight scene. The cast is good enough and it has the potential to be a solid crime thriller. The problem is that the movie never makes me care about Vincent and I never do. There are also some logic problems although logic may not be a big sticking point. This has all the parts but fails to put them together.

Not sure why this movie is averaging so low. Its not the greatest crime movie but it is decent enough. Acting is solid and pacing keeps things interesting. Action is well executee. Granted some things were quite obvious but its hard to not be in a genre like this. I enjoyed it.

You may go sleepless while watching this abduction thriller with a couple of stars, Jamie Foxx and Michelle Monaghan. They're Las Vegas PD detectives involved in drug busting with all the kidnap, corruption components in place.

The outstanding element is the awareness that an Oscar winner--Foxx--can be wasted in a hum-drum actioner that surprises not at all. Believe me when I tell you that if you stirred Liam Neeson in with this script, you'd know the difference only by the skin color of the kidnapped children.

Although director Odar does a competent job with the foot races and car chases, they are still boiler-plate staples of the genre. While Foxx spends most of the film improbably finding his son, losing him, finding him again in an almost Groundhog Day motif, the action becomes tedious quickly. His life-threatening-wound is ludicrously not debilitating except for a few high-priced Oscar grunts that end up immobilizing a goon or two who have no similar disabilities.

It was a dismal afternoon when I saw Sleepless because I love cinematic visuals and watching Michelle make something out of nothing. Otherwise, you'll be more careful about the safety of your children. That's the good part.

Here's the thing - if movies never suspended belief, they would be both pointless and incredibly dull. The reasons that the things we see in movies rarely happen in real life is because logic generally takes over and prevents these things from actually happening. Thus it would be incredibly difficult to make an entertaining movie without having quite a few illogical things happen. It just stands to reason. So when people come out of a movie and say they hated it because "x" would never happen or "y" didn't make sense or when a certain character did something they should have done something else, I don't really buy that as a reason to ever hate a movie. I have a feeling that is a lot of what is going on with 'Sleepless' and people's opinions of it. Admittedly throughout the film I kept thinking to myself those kinds of things, like this guy got stabbed a long time ago and has had about 10 fights since and still seems to have superhuman strength. You can notice these things, but I think you are being very tough if you are judging your entire opinion on them.

There's rarely a dull moment in 'Sleepless'. The action begins almost immediately and basically never lets up. I loved the fact that almost the entire movie takes place in one setting. It was like a fun house by the end with all the nooks and crannies being explored and visited by different characters. I also enjoyed the fact that you could never be entirely sure about whether or not a character was loyal or not. The characters were actually very well written almost entirely across the board.

As just a straight up entertainment package I really enjoyed 'Sleepless'. It never lost my interest once and it knew its limitations. If you ever find yourself bored watching this movie then I would suggest action movies are certainly not for you. If you can suspend your belief and just sit back and enjoy the ride, I think you will find you'll very much enjoy this film.