The Perfect Sleep

Overall, I enjoyed the film. I think it is a fine example of modern Film-Noire. It's true, the plot is a little too vague, the lack of societal context reduces it's sense of authenticity and realism, and the voice-over narration could have been used less or perhaps eliminated completely. Overall though, it's a great mood piece and visually sumptuous and stunning. The beautiful Ms. Sanchez allowed me to feel the pain of her relationship with the hero. This film had a lot of potential to be a true masterpiece, but the flaws bring it down to the level of great genre piece. I would highly recommend it to fans of the genre, but, it's not a film I would recommend to the casual viewer.

This was such a terrible film, almost a comedy sketch of a noir film.The budget was low compared to a blockbuster, but still higher than most.But its where they've decided to cut costs that is totally weird.Some actors are at least competent, while others look like they just been dragged off the street.One of them being the lead actor, hes so very bad that i cringed when ever he said anything (he talks through the ENTIRE movie).Then there's the weird costume choices.At the start of the movie all characters are wearing 1930's clothes.They drive a classic car, but the background is a modern day windfarm thats blatantly state of the art.And the costumes and some settings continue to follow this 30's film noir theme.Then BAM in drives a brand new escalade with 24 inch rims....WTF.Same thing again when a guy has a night scope on his rifle, you get a shot down its sight.Hes aiming at a guy with an mp5 and tactical gear on.In a even stranger contrast the locations are brilliant, and seem to have cost more than the rest of the entire film.The camera shots/angles a very good, and show these locations brilliantly in the scenes.The director has a keen eye for a good looking single shot, but no idea how to do much else.

People who should be shot for this film▼

The writer The director The casting agent The costume designer

People who should be tortured to death for their monotone, monotonous nails on chalk board voice.▼

Anton Pardoe- the lead actor, writer, producer If you ever seen the movie Hostel, i wish that would happen to this guy, but he doesn't escape.

"The PERFECT SLEEP".... could be The Perfect Title, if it refers to the reaction it elicits from viewers! One can only apply powers of divination as to director Jeremy Alter's intent. Location Manager on a number of high-profile films, long before and since, "Sleep" seems to be 1 of only 2 obviously ill-fated forays into film direction. (How about: "Location Managers Gone Wild"?)

Seems ro me that, in its conceptualization at least, "Sleep" was destined to become a larger-than-life, neo-classic, film noir, somnambulant visionary dreamlike masterpiece!!!!! Sorry, Jeremy, only in your "Perfect Sleep" dreams! From beginning to end, the central character delivers an incessantly droning voice-over monotone narration. Was this intended to lull the viewer to sleep or some semi-hypnotic state? Desired or not, that is the effect it had on me!

Looking at the finished product, the execution didn't achieve 10% of what was envisioned. There were a few moments when it seemed "Sleep" was, at last, awakening, but they were fleeting moments, indeed. The movie locations were the only 10* element IMO. Mr. Alter does have a good eye, I'd rate all other visual aspects 6 to 8*. Every other non-visual aspect, and I've run though a dozens in my mind, rates 1 to 2 Stars. Overall: 4**** "The Perfect Sleep"

ENJOY!!! / DISFRUTELA!!! .... If You CAN!!!!!!

Imagine Diane from Cheers, the self centered over intellectualizing character, now imagine she was trying to make a film moire movie. This would be it. If you just looked at some of the shots without any sound you would think Hmmm.. this could be a good film.

Now if you turn on the sound and listen for anytime at all you quickly realize that the person that made the film knows nothing about films beyond what they read in a book. I was continually thinking is this thing a foreign film, it was that bad.

If you don't remember Cheers, then think of Mr. Beans Holiday... remember the DeFoe character that made the horrible movie... well imagine that horrible movie without Mr. Bean saving it. That is what this movie is. I'm not saying anything about what the movie is other than it is an attempt to make a dark moody film about a hit-man going back home.... at least that's about all I could get out of it.

I've just finished watching this... it's in my VLC player for two days. The main reason why it took me so long to go through it is that I find things that I love about it, and on the other hand I find things that I can't believe are so very poor and almost make vomit... and so this dichotomy makes the movie a hard piece to swallow.

I'll try to name a few of the negative aspects first:

1. The plot line seems confused and overly complex, and the poor graphic details of the movie make it pale and uninteresting to look at (which, if it where not the case, could help create interest on the viewer's part to keep pace with the strange and intricate family drama)

2. There are hardly any other actors apart from the characters; this means there are little to no extras, no population, no sense of society... all it looks like is a void and empty sequence of dark scenarios with little to no discerning features whatsoever... Making the whole thing a little too often look like a sequence of amateur theater shoots. In other words, the director and producers did not bother to put any effort into making the environment of the film credible. It isn't at any time delivering any kind of veracity to the possibility of the story ever finding an imaginable realm where it could take place.

3. Things don't seem too thought out. The main character is a prince, or some kind of bastard descendant of a ruler... but he does not behave like one. You can hardly piece together how he lived his life, why he is hunted down (right at the beginning), or why is his brother convinced that he is somehow responsible for his father's death. I mean... it doesn't feel like a noble family's intuitive dynamic at all, certainly not like the type on a Dostoievsky novel.

4. It looks like it's a student project, because the acting is so over the top, on a few of the parts... Other, elder, actors are brilliant. The difference is astounding. There seems to be no effort to push the younger actors into delivering a real credible performance. It feels very strange.

OK, on to the good parts:

1. The dialogs. They really present a vocabulary experience that is close to film noir classics, and and times is so poetic and powerful that it actually makes you think of Russian novels. It seems to be very well written throughout, but poorly executed. I almost need to close my eyes to the sad spectacle of the movie, to listen to the character's amazing discourse on some parts. The main character is poorly crafted, I thought... It lacked coherence in it's actions, some real sense of integrity, I feel the way it is both shown and interpreted is very silly, exaggerated and completely nonsensical.

2. Some of the acting is amazing, Tony Amendola especially! I rarely see such talent in an actor... he was the only one (maybe alongside Patrick Bachau) that picked up the text and brought it to a credible output... and he stands out brilliantly.

3. The fighting. Well, I thought fights here would be ridiculous... in the context of the dramatic feud that takes place through the plot. But in the end, they are quite contrary, almost the best this film has to show. They seem well rehearsed, well executed and choreographed, and look pretty cool. Too bad the scenarios in which they take place are so lame, and incoherent... Where it not for that, the fight scenes would be some of the most consistent I've seen.

4. The sense of sympathy. The core idea of this film seems to be so appealing, I can almost imagine this script beating the crap out of a Frank Miller adaptation of Sin City. I can compare this title to "The Spirit"... "The Spirit" has a million dollar budget, looks brilliant, but it's absolutely horrible (week and whack storyline, terrible acting, horrendously tedious and terrible directing), but "The Perfect Sleep" - if it had better and more consistent casting and directing - and the visual investments of "The Spirit" could have been a fabulous work of art. It feels like something that should be re-done by some serious experts, because I believe there would be much better ways of delivering the script.

In the end, it's hardly worth watching unless you don't have anything better to do. I hope this helped... My vote of 5 goes to the writers and the initial concept that could have been brilliantly executed, to the idea that could have been... And an incentive to Pardoe, who imagined it, to learn from this experience and do better next time.