By Erin Free
Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Russell Crowe, Marton Csokas, Karen Gillan, Harry Greenwood, Thomas M. Wright, Tommy Flanagan
Intro:
While Russell Crowe’s performance is singularly impressive and provides the anchor of gravitas that the film needs, Sleeping Dogs falters whenever it drifts too far away from him...
Russell Crowe has certainly been peeling it back lately, seemingly eschewing major Hollywood studio productions in favour of lower key, more independent minded fare like Land Of Bad, The Pope’s Exorcist and The Exorcism. It’s a career trajectory that seems to be almost mirroring that of Nicolas Cage, a one-time Oscar winner and major player now taking on far more outré material in smaller but frequently very interesting films (just check out the extraordinary likes of Mandy or Pig to witness the rewards such career diversification can bring). And also like Nicolas Cage, just because Crowe is taking on smaller projects, it doesn’t mean his effort is any less. A fierce, compulsively watchable talent, Russell Crowe has never been guilty of phoning it in, and his latest film, Sleeping Dogs, benefits enormously from his prodigious gifts.
In terms of character, Crowe is handed a lot to work with here, and he certainly grabs it with both hands. The actor is in bruising, highly intense form as Roy Freeman, a former detective undergoing experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease. With his head a mess of scars from a series of implanted electrodes, Freeman’s mind is shot, and most of his memories gone, but his doctors think they might be able to get them back. An obvious shell of his former tough, apparently boozy self, Freeman is drawn back into the fray when summoned by a man on Death Row that he helped put there. The man makes a strong plea for his innocence, and the profoundly compromised Freeman digs back into the case, which involves a local college professor (Marton Csokas), two of his students (Karen Gillan, Harry Greenwood), his groundsman (Thomas M. Wright), and Freeman’s former detective partner (Tommy Flanagan).
While Crowe’s performance is singularly impressive and provides the anchor of gravitas that the film needs, Sleeping Dogs falters whenever it drifts too far away from him, which it does way too often. As Crowe’s engagingly battered ex-cop reads through files and digs through the old case, the narrative opens up and wanders into different, far less interesting territory dotted with college politics, relationship intrigue and, well, bad performances. While Sons Of Anarchy tough guy Tommy Flanagan is in good form, Marton Csokas slices the ham way too thick, and the flat-eyed Karen Gillan looks as if she’s just been roused from a coma. Harry Greenwood’s wholly irritating character, meanwhile, prevents the talented young actor from ever making much of an impact.
Though screenwriter (Assassin’s Creed, Allegiant) turned debut director Adam Cooper shows some flair for strong visuals with the film’s dark, murky milieu, this shot-in-Melbourne-but-subbing-for-somewhere-in-the-US thriller lacks any real sense of place, existing instead in some kind of untethered cinematic limbo. There is much to like about Sleeping Dogs (especially its sense of mood and its uncompromising climax), but the film is only ever truly on-point when it sticks with the towering Russell Crowe and his bruising plethora of mental and moral dilemmas. In this mystery drama, the real interest is in the drama, and not the whodunnit.
