Russell Crowe Performs an Ex-Cop With Dementia

Russell Crowe in ‘Sleeping Canine’

Courtesy of The Avenue

You already know you’re getting previous when your favourite film stars are beginning to play characters stricken with dementia. Arriving shortly on the heels of Knox Goes Away, that includes Michael Keaton as a hitman affected by the situation, is Adam Cooper’s neo-noir thriller starring Russell Crowe as an ex-cop whose psychological situation has deteriorated so dramatically that he’s compelled to depart notes plastered all through his residence, Memento-style. Regardless of the plot factor’s familiarity, it’s nonetheless essentially the most intriguing factor of Sleeping Canine, a sluggishly rendered thriller that audiences could have lengthy stopped caring about earlier than it reaches its conclusion.

Crowe performs Roy Freeman, a former murder detective whose unhappy state of being is instantly signified not solely by these notes providing the best of reminders but additionally the stack of Hungry-Man frozen dinners in his freezer. He’s sporting a big bandage on his head, the remnant of experimental surgical procedure he’s lately needed to probably reverse his situation. Within the meantime, on the recommendation of his physician he tries to stimulate his thoughts through things like assembling jigsaw puzzles.

However a significantly better mind-invigorating puzzle presents itself when he’s contacted by an advocacy group for demise row prisoners (suppose the Innocence Venture) a few man shortly to be executed for the homicide of a college professor that Roy investigated a decade earlier. He agrees to fulfill with the condemned man (Pacharo Mzembe), who professes his innocence regardless of having confessed to the crime. Roy decides to dig deeper, contacting his former associate Jimmy (Harry Flanagan) to jog his reminiscence. Alongside the way in which, we be taught that Roy left his job not due to his situation however slightly due to a drunk-driving conviction.

The movie quickly leads us down a rabbit gap involving a memoir written by a former assistant (Harry Greenwood) to the useless man (Marton Csokas, displaying his formidable charisma) and a romantic triangle that develops between them and one of many professor’s college students (Karen Gillan), who may as properly be sporting the label “femme fatale” on her brow.

With this jarring shift in perspective, the story turns into so convoluted that viewers might begin to suppose they share Roy’s situation. Which might be high quality if what transpired onscreen was extra compelling — nobody is aware of what the hell is occurring in The Large Sleep both, and it’s not possible to cease watching. However Sleeping Canine proves so lackadaisical in its pacing that you simply lose the urge to maintain up.

For those who’re a fan of Eddie Mueller’s Noir Alley on TCM (and if you happen to’re not, you may as properly neglect about this movie), you’ll know that the dapper host makes enjoyable of the truth that reminiscence loss and amnesia are such oft-used plot units within the style that they virtually invite parody. That feels just like the case right here, particularly with the large twist reveal on the finish that fails to land with the hoped-for shock worth.

Cooper — making his directorial debut after writing screenplays for such movies as The Transporter Refueled and Murderer’s Creed — does his greatest to energise the proceedings with visible thrives conveying his protagonist’s deteriorated psychological state. However their overuse solely serves to decelerate the movie even additional.  

Whereas the proficient Gillan may be efficient in quite a lot of roles, this isn’t one in all them. Rather more efficient is Greenwood, who beforehand labored with Crowe on Gladiator and with whom he shares a robust, lived-in chemistry.

Crowe himself, as common, is the most effective factor within the movie, as soon as once more upgrading lower than optimum materials together with his indelible display screen presence. If the charismatic actor had been born many years earlier, he would have been spending his mature years mixing it up onscreen with the likes of Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet.