So you're driving down the street with your
homeboy, minding your own business with your only intention
being to chase down and hijack a car full of drugs. That
it. Thus when you pull the car over and one of the guys
in the car shoots you, that's very upsetting.
Fortunately our hero, Vincent (Tomer Sisley) survived this
gunshot wound, more or less, got his drugs and along with his
partner Manuel (Laurent Stocker), they got away.
Besides, they gotta get to work since their primary function
is protecting Paris from law breakers, such as themselves, as
police detectives. That's a complicated situation, but
things are going to get much more complicated for Vincent,
kind of, all in the span one day, in this action thriller
'Sleepless Night'.
Vincent and Manuel have their drugs, heck if I know what they
plan to do with them, but that's neither here nor there right
now because the drug kingpin Jose (Serge Roaboukini) has
Thomas (Samy Seghir) in his custody. Who is
Thomas? Why that's Vincent's somewhat disrespectful
thirteen year old son, and while the boy probably could use a
few lessons in the manners department, he is the man's
child.
Now this Jose character isn't really a bad dude as far as drug
dealers go, at least in the sense that he's not looking
forward to killing Thomas, but he knows that Vincent has his
drugs and he needs Vincent to bring him these drugs to his
popping night club before the dude to whom he's selling these
drugs shows up. Very simple.
We can infer that over the course of
Thomas' life that Vincent probably hasn't been the best dad,
but he's not going to let the boy die and as such he's brought
the drugs to the club. But here's where things get
complicated a little bit. Detective Vignali (Lizzy
Brochere), the
cutest, thinnest, youngest police detective
you will ever want to see, has been suspicious of Vincent for
a while and all of her own volition has followed him to this
club in hopes of bringing him to justice. Vignali's
boss, Commander Lacombe (Julien Bosselier) is also aware of
Vincent's side dealings, but for different reasons that we
won't get into. Also at this club are the brutal thugs
looking to purchase these drugs in Faydek (Joey Starr) and his
right hand man Yilmaz (Birol Unel) and in a movie filled with
people that aren't very nice, these are the least nicest
people.
Thus Vincent has a simple path. Get the drugs from the
hiding place, give them to Jose, get Thomas. But there's
no drugs no more. Oh snap! And now the real
adventure begins. Thomas life is in increasing danger,
not everybody is quite what they seem, everybody at this club
seems to be shooting at Vincent, and that gunshot he received
in the beginning of the movie isn't healing itself.
Action, mayhem and chaos shall ensue, en masse.
Director Frederic Jardin's 'Sleepless Night', in a few words,
is a batch of awesomeness in its most ridiculous form.
What that basically means is if you want to see a dynamic star
run through one spectacular action set piece after another,
with a bullet in his chest, and have very little problem that
not a lot that takes place in this movie could happen on any
version of the planet Earth that you are currently familiar
with, then 'Sleepless Night' is just about irresistible.
However if any of those things I mentioned just above bother
you, then might find issue with this one.
Let's talk about the star for a second in Tomer Sisley, this
being the third movie I've seen Mr. Sisley in, the first two
being those Largo Winch films I personally thought were
fantastic… if not somewhat similar to this in their heavy
reliance on action over common sense… but from where I'm
sitting based on those previous efforts Mr. Sisley looks to
have this action thing down fairly pat. He's not an
oppressive figure, or musclebound at least as far as I can
tell, in fact it looks like he should probably front load on
some carbs if you were to ask me since he is a little on the
thin side, but my man has soul in conjunction with a
definitive screen presence which goes a lot farther than
biceps and triceps.
This isn't to say that Vincent didn't kick some ass in this
movie because 'Sleepless Night', more so than any movie I've
recently seen, and that includes stateside insanity such as
'Bullet to the Head' and 'The Last Stand'… no shortage of
muscles for the leads of those movies… but this is an action
movie first and foremost. This movie, from the
first scene to the last, almost never stops. Even the
setup for the plot, which was admittedly rudimentary at best,
developed itself largely on the fly, in the midst of some
action sequence. Car chases, shoot outs, fist fights…
the inspired kitchen knife fight was particularly entertaining
and brutal… 'Sleepless Night' has you covered.
Does it make any sense? Oh good heavens no. The
longer the movie goes the more nonsensical it gets until it
loses all sense of any kind of reality by the time it reaches
its end. Of course, the way it's designed, you shouldn't
have too much time to think about how nutty this movie is
until it's over, but then the argument could also be made that
this movie has too much
action. I'm not the one saying that, but if someone were
to make that argument, I'd have a hard time rebutting it.
Nonetheless, and I've been saying this for years, the French
have been my go to guys when it comes action thrillers and the
existence of 'Sleepless Night' has done nothing to change this
blanket statement.
