SLEEPING DOGS (2024) - Movie Review

Director: Adam Cooper
Starring: Russell Crowe, Karen Gillan, Marton Csokas, Tommy Flanagan, Harry Greenwood
Genre: Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Writer: Adam Cooper, Bill Collage
Runtime: 110 min
Rated: R for violence/bloody images, sexual content and language
Buy This Movie: DVD (Amazon), Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV

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Synopsis:

In this gripping crime thriller, Russell Crowe stars as Roy Freeman, an ex-homicide detective with a fractured memory, forced to revisit a case he can't remember. As a man's life hangs in the balance on death row, Freeman must piece together the brutal evidence from a decade-old murder investigation, uncovering a sinister web of buried secrets and betrayals linking to his past. With only instincts to trust, he faces a chilling truth - sometimes, it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.

Review:

"Sleeping Dogs" is a "Memento" wannabe adapted from the novel "The Book of Mirrors" by Romanian author E.O. Chirovici. The only things this movie has going for it are Russell Crowe and a pretty decent neo-noir detective story, but director Adam Cooper fumbles his directorial debut and delivers a mundane, predictable and derivative thriller.

Crowe commendably doesn't phone in his performance, and neither do Marton Csokas and Tommy Flanagan. They're pretty much the only ones making this movie tolerable. The most shocking bit of casting is Karen Gillan who I've always thought of as a good actress, but is completely off and cringe-inducing in the role of the femme fatale.

As previously mentioned, the story isn't bad, and there are a couple of good ideas, most of which probably sourced from the book, but the ending is pretty predictable. There's plenty of dramatic material here for a good actor like Crowe to sink his teeth in, although much of it is undermined by low-effort filmmaking. The cinematography is amateurish, with a lot of poorly lit scenes and an overall generic look. David Hirschfelder's score is perhaps the only element of this production that isn't half-baked.

If you enjoy who-dunnits and crime stories, give it a try, but I can't reallly recommend this. There are so many better movies out there, and you'd be much better off reading the book.

SCORE: 5.5/10