| I'll Sleep When I'm Dead | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Mike Hodges |
| Produced by | Michael Corrente Mike E.Kaplan |
| Written by | Trevor Preston |
| Starring | Clive Owen Jonathan Rhys-Meyers Malcolm McDowell |
| Music by | Simon Fisher-Turner |
| Cinematography | Michael Garfath |
| Editing by | Paul Carlin |
| Distributed by | Paramount Classics |
| Release date(s) | 16 June 2004 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $490,964[1] |
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead is a 2004 British crime film directed by Mike Hodges, from a screenplay by Trevor Preston. The film bears many striking similarities to Hodges' directorial debut, the classic 1971 crime drama Get Carter. Both films feature men who return to their former hometowns to investigate the death of a brother who has died under mysterious circumstances.
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Davey Graham (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) arrives at an upper class party to sell drugs to a woman named Stella. As he leaves, Stella's date watches him and makes a call on his cell phone. Outside the party, three men are waiting for Davey in a black SUV, including a car dealer named Boad (Malcolm McDowell). The men follow Davey around London, finally attacking him just as he's headed home. Two of the men drag Davey off the street and into a garage, where they hold him down as Boad rapes him. At dawn, Davey emerges from the garage and stumbles home, where he draws a bath for himself and gets in fully clothed. Several hours later, his friend Mickser (Jamie Forman) arrives to pick up Davey. He discovers Davey dead in the bathtub, with his throat slashed. Mickser visits Helen (Charlotte Rampling) and asks her how to get in touch with Davey's brother Will (Clive Owen). She says that she has stopped receiving letters from Will, who left London three years earlier.
Will has been working as a logger in the country. He's unshaven with long hair, and he lives out of a van. After he's fired from his job for having no papers, he heads to the sea to take a ferry out of England when he sees Davey in the terminal. After realizing it was a hallucination, he begins calling Davey's flat. Receiving no answer, he returns to London, where he learns that Davey is dead.
His return to London stirs up the anxiety of crime boss Frank Turner (Ken Stott), who sends word to Will that he should leave town after he buries his brother. Will's old cohorts urge him to return for good, saying that Turner could be overtaken easily. Will makes it clear that he is not interested in returning to his old life. He visits Helen and apologizes for leaving her. He explains that he has been grieving for 'a life wasted', lamenting the fact that Davey also wasted his.
Will orders a second post-mortem to try and determine why Davey would kill himself. It reveals that he was raped the night before he died, in addition to the fact that Davey ejaculated during the rape. The coroner explains that it was a result of the anal stimulation, surmising that Davey probably killed himself over the shame he felt after involuntarily ejaculating during the rape. He refers Will to a psychologist who can explain the phenomenon more eloquently. As Will listens to the psychologist explain the mindset of the rapist and the mental damage of a rape victim, he takes his first drink in three years.
Mickser visits the woman who hosted the party where Davey made his sale. The hostess remembers seeing the man make a phone call as Davey left, and she tracks down his identity. Will and Mickser visit the man who leads them to Boad. During a dinner party at Boad's house, Will cases the grounds and leaves. Meanwhile, Will's cohorts pull a prank at Turner's house, hogtying one of his bodyguards in a bra and panties. Irate, Turner hires an Irish hitman to retaliate.
Will visits a garage and uncovers a vintage Jaguar. He retrieves a suitcase from the trunk and checks into a hotel. The suitcase is full of money and clothes, in addition to a gun. Will has a suit pressed and orders a barber to cut off his long hair and beard. Clean cut and in his suit, he has the Jaguar washed and heads to Boad's house. On his way, he calls Helen and tells her to pack a bag. Turner's hitman is waiting outside her house, though.
At Boad's, Will trips the alarm on a car in the garage, drawing Boad out of the house. Will kills his dog and then points his gun at Boad, asking him why he raped Davey. Boad explains that he'd been following Davey for six weeks, fascinated by how fake he was. He hated the way that Davey waltzed through life, conning everyone with good looks and charm. Boad says that he wanted to make Davey realize that he was worthless. Will tells Boad that he will kill him later, because killing him at that moment would be too easy. As he's walking away from the house, he pauses and then returns to the garage and kills Boad.
Helen is shown being held hostage by the hitman who is waiting for Will to pick her up. The film ends on an ambiguous note as Will watches a man hitting golf balls into the ocean. It is the same shot and voiceover which open the film. Will speaks about how most thoughts are just memories, and after someone is gone, the memories of him are all that's left. He gets into his car and drives off.
The film received very mixed reviews. On the website RottenTomatoes.com it sports a 44% approval rating, certifying it as "rotten". One of the common complaints among its critics is that they felt it moved much too slowly. Despite its detractors, however, Hodges' movie managed to find some formidable defenders. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, saying, "...there is a tangible pleasure in following enigmatic characters through the shadows of their lives; deprived for a time of plot, given characters who are not clearly labeled and assigned moral categories, we're allowed to make judgments based on their manner and speech."[2] Writing for the New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, "Does the film work? All I know is that it stays in my mind for its ambitiously autumnal essence, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea." According to Owen Gleiberman, "Hodges...still knows how to unspool a mystery with a hypnotic pace of sadistic intrigue." Slant Magazine's Nick Schager awarded the film a full four stars.
The film was released on 16 June 2004 and grossed $13,415 in the opening weekend. It went on to gross $360,759 domestically and $130,205 in the foreign markets for a worldwide total of $490,964.[3]
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