Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs is a perfectly decent little murder mystery that clips along at a nice pace and slowly peels away its onion layers to reveal its dark centre.

The acting Is pretty good, Crowe is perfectly cast, Gillan is good enough and the rest of the cast are convincing. The writer/ director is competently done and the film is well made with good production values and nice touches in the flashbacks.

There are movies that it draws from, Momento for the memory loss and every film noir ever.

All this being said, there is nothing about Sleeping Dogs that is fantastic or groundbreaking. It is however good, honest old fashioned film making. More like this please.

Sleeping Dogs is a new crime mystery directed, written and produced in part by Adam Cooper. He makes his directorial debut with this film. He also has some experience as a screenwriter for films such as Allegiant and Assassin's Creed.

Roy Freeman (Russell Crowe) is an ex-detective who had to quit his job because he suffered from Alzheimer's. When a prisoner is threatened with the death penalty, he asks Roy to take another look at his case and hopefully find enough evidence to prove his innocence and save his life.

Despite his poor memory, Roy tries to revisit and revive the ten-year-old case. This is how he ends up in a crime web full of brutal actions and dark secrets, in which he must decipher the real truth.

Just like Russell Crowe's character, as a viewer you try to keep up with what happened in the ten-year-old case. This way you can try to solve the matter yourself. The crime web just contains many events and different characters, some of whom are suspects or victims. Everyone also brings their own story with hints, although some hints sometimes contradict each other. Due to the Alzheimer's complaints of the main character and all these different storylines and hints, you do not always get all the traces clearly. Despite the many twists and the main character's poor memory, the real perpetrators of the crime can still be guessed. As a result, all the mysterious aspects of the mystery can be a bit disappointing in the end, because the answer was so easy to guess.

However, they have unnecessarily chosen to add special drugs and science fiction-like medical gadgets to the story, which causes the film to lose some of its realism. In addition to these non-existent things, the film responds nicely to real things and data surrounding the human brain. If they had just stuck to the real stuff, the movie could have been more interesting.

Russell Crowe comes across well and realistically as an older detective who can no longer always trust his own memory. Other cast members also play well on the mysterious aspects of the mystery. With most of them you don't always know whether or not they can be trusted and whether they play victims or perpetrators in the story.

The movie is just average, things like music, cinematography etc. It's not bad but nothing new or special. The plot is a bit convoluted which will either keep you engaged or annoy you depending on your mood.

Solid performances from the main players, particularly the creepy yet sexy professor guy.

Russel Crowe is the main character, a retired detective with a new/old case. It's basically a mystery detective story with some added drama psychology elements.

The biggest problem is one has to keep ones attention to know what is happening but it's mostly just dialogue and Mr. Crowe asking people stuff which leads to new discoveries so he goes and asks some more.

One sentence summary: To keep his mind active following an experimental medical treatment for Alzheimer's, a retired detective decides to revisit an old closed case.

While I would stop short of calling Sleeping Dogs a good movie, there is plenty to like about this Russell Crowe-led independent mystery. It unashamedly draws inspiration from films like Memento (2000) and, more recently, Memory (2022), but Crowe's performance is what gives this movie its own spark. The supporting cast provided him with little help, though, as he was noticeably a league above his co-stars. Inconsistent pacing also hurt the film at times, hampering the momentum that the twisty, occasionally convoluted story seeks to build. Luckily, the movie concludes with a bang, delivering a gut-punch ending that is equally satisfying and devastating.

A title like 'Sleeping Dogs' should already tell you it's not going to be a high-octane thriller and some of the complaints about the slow-burn pace of this film may have missed the point regarding its very solid tonal consistency. It's an 'old' film by design. This is reflected in the casting, the murder/whodunnit trope, the 'mystery' incidental music and the dated style of storytelling with the reveal at the end. There's nothing wrong with any of the performances, particularly Russell Crowe's portrayal of a man who knows he's past his peak and harbouring concerns about the reliability of his memory. Tommy Flanagan also manages fine in a larger role but I couldn't decide if Karen Gillan was intentionally overdoing it or just did a spectacular job of playing a control freak nutcase. Sleeping Dogs may not appeal to everyone but if you're over 50 (and no longer a gladiator) you'll likely find it relatable.