Sleepless (2017)

“Sleepless” stars Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan, Dermot Mulroney, David Harbour, T.I., Gabrielle Union, and Scoot McNairy.  Released on January 13, 2017, the film is about a corrupt cop who must rescue his kidnapped son.

The film is directed by Baran bo Odar, who also directed The Silence and Who Am I - No System Is Safe, and it is a remake of the 2011 French thriller, Sleepless Night.  Kevin Costner has had his shot at being an action star last year with Criminal, so now it’s Jamie Foxx’s turn.  This film surprisingly hooked me up for one particular reason: its trailer.  There’s just something about how the trailer was edited that screams “Go see the film.  It’s awesome.”, but I wouldn’t spend too much of your time talking about the film’s marketing.  Now that I got a chance to see Jamie Foxx in action, was it really as awesome as the trailer suggested?  Story wise, not really, but I did find it to be a pretty decent thriller.

The performances were nothing special, but I did enjoy Jamie Foxx as Vincent Downs, and Monaghan was surprisingly good as an investigator who is suspicious of Downs‘ actions.  Like many other decent action thrillers, the story didn’t do a whole lot to cooperate with this film’s heart-pounding action.  It had a nice idea that will get the audience to care more about these characters, but its execution was a bit sour.  I would like it a bit better if they have a much stronger screenplay.  Now, it doesn’t exactly mean that the film was disappointing.  If its goal was to just entertain the audience with its thrilling action, then it does its job pretty well.  As soon as Downs‘ son gets kidnapped by the son of a powerful mob boss, that’s where it started to get more interesting.  Throughout the second and third acts, Baran bo Odar managed to keep things as thrilling as possible, even the ones that didn’t have any action.  There were a couple of moments where the shaky camera work can be a nuisance, but it didn’t take away my experience of seeing Foxx kicking some bad guy butt.  There were also a couple of twists in the film that I won’t spoil for you in case you haven’t seen it, but I thought they were handled pretty well.

Overall, “Sleepless” overcame its typical action thriller storyline to deliver a solid, heart-pounding ride for the adults.  I would even say that this is probably my most tolerable January film of this year, in my opinion.  It’s pretty surprising that this film received a lot of bad reviews from critics.  Sure, it’s not perfect, but I had a pretty good time watching it.  If you like something that gets your heart pounding, then this one might be for you.  Just don’t go into it expecting a great story.

B-