Sleepless - A Deadly Night

To survive on the tough streets of Las Vegas, cops Vincent (Jamie Foxx) and Sean (Tip T.I. Harris) don't always take the law too seriously themselves. When they capture an unexpectedly large shipment of cocaine during one of their illegal tours, their joy over the million-dollar find is short-lived. Because the substance belongs to the powerful casino boss Stan Rubino (Dermot Mulroney). He wants the cocaine back at any price, otherwise he himself would get into trouble with the client of the unscrupulous drug lord Novak (Scoot McNairy). To prevent this, any means is fine with him - even the kidnapping of Vincent's son Thomas (Octavius J. Johnson). Now Vincent must try to return the hot goods to Rubino without his colleague Jennifer Bryant (Michelle Monaghan) getting wind of it. Because if the suspicious cop gets in his way, it could be life-threatening for Thomas.

For his films The Last Silence and especially Who Am I, director Baran Bo Odar was not only celebrated in Germany. Many a door has opened in Hollywood as well, so that he could now deliver his first US production with Sleepless. The only problem is that Baran Bo Odar has co-written the screenplay for all his films so far. That was not the case here. Worse, for his Hollywood debut, he had to settle for a remake of an average French thriller. The result makes it clear that Baran Bo Odar is a veteran filmmaker, but he can only really shine when he enjoys creative freedom. That wasn't the case here.

There's no question that Sleepless is a solid thriller. The film looks good, the actors are consistently convincing - as far as the script allows - and the action is neatly staged. But especially when you think of the finesse with which an atmospherically dense thriller like The Last Silence was directed, it's just a shame how little of it there is here. A few days before the German theatrical release, the trailer for Dark, the first German NETFLIX series by Baran Bo Odar, was released. And the few seconds of this teaser radiated more atmosphere, tension and originality than the entire 95 minutes of this routine thriller. Though it would be really exciting to see what a creative mind like Odar could pull off with Hollywood's resources, if left to his own devices. But who knows - what isn't, may yet come.

In the 80s, Sleepless would have been called good video store fare. That might sound a bit derogatory now, but it's actually meant in a relatively positive way. Because to its target audience, the film offers thoroughly entertaining entertainment, despite some logic holes and stale clichés. Yes, the film may not reinvent the wheel and only fish in all too familiar waters. But you really can't accuse it of being boring. Still, it's a shame that Baran Bo Odar, with a good actor like Jamie Foxx, an atmospheric location like Las Vegas and a story that is quite exciting at its core, can only show very little of what made his previous directorial works so special. Therefore, the bottom line is only one: worth seeing with restrictions!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp