Review: Sleeping Dogs (2024)
Mediocre supporting performances drag down a straight-ahead noir film
Sleeping Dogs (2024)
Written and Directed by Adam Cooper
Co-written by Bill Collage, from the book by E.O. Chirovici
In this noir procedural, the retired detective Roy Freeman is visited by an innocence advocate on behalf of a Death Row inmate whom the detective help convict several years earlier. She wants him to meet the inmate, and the inmate wants him to reopen the case. The problem is that Freeman, played by a wrinkled, heavy-footed Russell Crowe, has Alzheimer’s Disease. Since the compilation and assembly of facts in a murder investigation relies upon short-term memory, this would seem to be a major handicap.
The murder victim was a college professor. In the course of the film, as Freeman digs through the files and talks to persons of interest — and as said persons keep turning up dead — he realizes that something was wrong with the confession that his partner Jimmy, played by “Sons of Anarchy”’s Tommy Flanagan (of course the sidekick is named Jimmy, it was either that or something like Guffer Murphy) got out of the now-condemned man.
Here’s the setup: The murder victim (Marton Csokas) was an unctuous psychology professor who was (or was not, depending on who is believed) both banging his research assistant Laura (Karan Gillan) and taking credit for her work. For some reason, the professor hires her boyfriend Richard (Harry Greenwood), who even when introduced seems paranoid and delusional — his relentless negging of Laura during a reception where they meet is only a little more disgusting than his overweening self-confidence — to catalog a dusty room full of books. In addition to this dysfunctional triangle, the prof has put a shell-shocked war vet to work as his gardener, and is also experimenting on him — including, somehow, prescribing him drugs, which I don’t think a psychology prof can do. Each of these minions of the professor has a motive to kill him, it seems.
That’s not the only experimenting going on. Freeman, the Alzheimer’s patient, has had an experimental operation to plant electrodes in his brain. These little zappers not only treat his condition, they’re actually reversing it, so that Freeman’s ability to remember things improves over the course of his investigation. And it’s this improvement in his memory (sadly not a real advance in neuroscience, not yet anyway) that helps him solve the mystery.
Until he does, Freeman has more to deal with than the complicated web of suspects, none of whom are sitting on Death Row for the professor’s murder. Laura seems intent on impressing everyone with how smart she is; she toys with the men in flashbacks and with Freeman in the present day. The writers seemed to be trying to make her one of those scary-smart women like the Jodie Comer character in “Killing Eve” or the Ruth Wilson character in the 2010s Idris Elba series “Luther,” but they fail, and the actress who plays Laura, Karan Gillan, isn’t able to rise to the role of femme fatale either.
In fact, just about all of the supporting actors, none of whom you’ve ever heard of (with the possible exception of Flanagan, who plays Freeman’s former partner Jimmy) are mediocre. And even when they’re doing well, first-time director Andy Cooper either fails to temper and control their performances, or his direction and editing just doesn’t communicate the necessary tone. There are two kinds of first-time directors — those whose skills were ready for the job, and the other kind. Cooper is the other kind.
And yet I enjoyed this movie more than it might seem. I found myself wondering why it’s obviously receiving such a small marketing push, why it seems destined for obscurity. It’s not that I’m a fan of Russell Crowe. There was something about the story that demands that more attention to be paid. Probably it’s the source, a novel by Romanian author E.O. Chirovici titled “The Book of Mirrors.” This 2015 Guardian story talks about how it was a big hit in the U.K., his first (and apparently only) novel in English. I’ll give him the credit.
So I was saying that Freeman’s improved Alzheimer’s condition helps him solve the case. But there’s a twist at the very end, showing that Freeman has remembered too much. It’s only here, in the film’s final two minutes, that the story of the murder finally becomes clear. It’s a good twist, though perhaps people who are better at this sort of thing will see it coming. I never see the solution to mysteries coming — or only if they’re mishandled by being telegraphed in advance. That’s the other reason I enjoyed this film more than the movie itself deserves.