Crimes na Madrugada

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.

Based on the coming attractions, I wasn't expecting much, and I got even less. This is another good cop/bad cop, is he or isn't he, kind of flick, set in Las Vegas with lots of glitz and glamour to hide what is a very shaky plot. If the glitz and glamour aren't enough to dazzle you, the music tracks will deafen you, and your visual delights will be satisfied with death by knife, death by pistol, death by automatic weapon, death by shotgun, death by truck, death by wine bottle - just to name a few.

The acting is pretty good, all things considered, but the direction is appalling and the action-every-minute film has low spots.

Generally I like films about internal affairs. "Internal Affairs" (1990), "The Departed" (2006) and "Q&A" (1990) are my favorites.

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.

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.

First and foremost , this movie is not very fresh. One simply cannot pin point the exact movie with which Sleepless bears uncanny resemblance. Not because there are none , but because that are many.

I shall not divulge any spoilers here but long story short , the movie is directed in the fashion of some 80's and 90's cop movies. Having said that , the director failed to synergize the elements of a good 90's thriller and a 21st century flick.

The result is a fairly confused movie , with strange action scenes, insipid dialogue, textbook movie characters no comic elements , not the slightest trace of wry or even dark humour.

Designed to have the elements of mystery ( the who is who? kind) , the director misuses his actors and and the plot.

However,for some reason the movie keeps the interest alive. One knows that around the corner there lies a very ordinary sequence and typical dialogue but still the straightforward narrative succeeds in holding your attention .

I cannot pan the movie because it is ordinary and unimpressive . So much so, in fact, that one can tolerate it, to pass time.