#39: SLEEPLESS

Starring Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan, Dermot Mulroney, David Harbour, T.I, Gabrielle Union, Scoot McNairy. Written by Andrew Berloff. Directed by Baran bo Odar. 95 very long minutes. Budget $30 million.

I really don't know if I can be bothered. I mean, I've seen some shit films in my time, I mean really shit, films that leave you angry by their utter ineptitude. Then there are those shit films that become good because they are so bad and then there are just those films that are shit, with a lower case 's', those films that boring, which in my opinion is the worst crime a film can commit. 

And this is one of those films, a pointless, dreary, dull and staggeringly boring crime film that leaves no crime cliche unchecked. Do you want your hero to be an undercover cop, pretending to be bad? CHECK! Do you want him to have an ex-wife who's on the verge of moving her new boyfriend into the marital home? CHECK! How about the hard-boiled female cop with a chip on her shoulder determined to prove she's just as hard-boiled as the men? CHECK! Did you want to have the 'which member of Internal Affairs is crooked'? CHECK! If you asked for an estranged teenage son then don't worry cos there's one of those in this too. In fact if you can spot a single new idea in this film you're a better man than I, Gunga Din.

The plot sees Jamie Foxx's character, I can't be arsed to name him, and his partner, T.I (who in his spare time is a drug mule for the baddie, Scott McNairy accidentally rob the wrong man of his 25 kilos of drugs. In revenge the 'wrong man', Dermort Mulroney kidnaps Foxx's son and demands the return of the drugs or his son will die. Meanwhile Michelle Monaghan disfigured by a horrific 5mm scar on her face is the angry Internal Affairs agent who is convinced that Foxx is corrupt and just won't let it lie, while her partner, David Harbour is far too helpful and nice for his own good. I bet he's up to no good.

So then all these stupid characters arrive at Dermot's casino, some of them punch each other, some of the shoot each other, Foxx's son gets kidnapped and rescued three or four times. One of them reveals themselves to be corrupt, while another isn't and our hero can survive being stabbed, shot and beaten up with nothing more serious than a gently bleeding wound that only inhibits our hero when he remembers. And then it's just time for the ex-wife, a nurse with a gun to arrive in the casino's multi-story car park just in time to save her ex husband in yet another pointless shoot-out.

Oh then, in a act so desperate it actually beggers belief the really big baddie behind everything, a man only name-checked but never seen is shoe-horned into an end coda that actually begs for a sequel, I mean seriously. But it's a pathetic effort and does nothing to drag this film out of the rancid pool of shit that it wallows in. This has nothing of any merit to recommend this shit fest. Seriously,  not one single goddam thing. It's just a great big 95 minute experiment in lazy, tedium. The director who starts off ripping off Se7en, seems to get just as bored as us and gives up. God, I wish I had.

A veritable shit sandwich, with a shit pattie and two slices of shit as bread with a sprinkling of shit pretending to be salad and served with a dollop of liquid poo.

2/10 but I can't think of why this isn't lower, maybe cos I didn't hate it.