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Released by: Imprint
Released on: March 29th, 2023.
Director: Mike Hodges
Cast: Clive Owen, Charlotte Rampling, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Malcolm McDowell.
Year: 2003
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I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead – Movie Review:
Directed by Mike Hodges, probably best known for the classic Get Carter, 2003's I'll Sleep When I'm Dead begins when a man named Davey Graham (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) meets up with a woman named Stella (Daisy Beaumont) at a fancy party so that he can sell her some drugs. When Davey splits, he has no idea that Stella's boyfriend made a phone call and that he's now being followed. When Davey gets home, a few men meet up with him and drag him off to a garage. Here a man named Broad (Malcolm McDowell) brutally sexually assaults him. After the incident, Davey goes home and gets in the bath where he's found dead with his throat slit a few hours later by his friend, Mickser (Jamie Foreman).
Mickser knows Davey had a brother named Will (Clive Owen) but isn't sure how to get a hold of him, so he talks to a mutual friend named Helen (Charlotte Rampling) but she tells him she hasn't heard from him in a few years.
Since he left London, Will has been living in a van out in the countryside in the logging industry but is soon let go for not having the proper paperwork in order. When he heads to the ferry he thinks he sees his brother but then realizes it’s a hallucination. This does, however, spur him to call his brother eventually leading him to learn of his death after not getting an answer and heading to London to find him. A mobster named Frank Turner (Ken Stott) makes it very clear that as soon as he's done with Davey's funeral, Will should once again leave London but the gang he once ran with really wants him back. When details of Davey's rape and death get back to Will, he starts drinking again and then teams up with Mickser to try and figure out who killed Davey and take care of things on their own terms.
Quite tense and nicely paced, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is a slick thriller populated with interesting and believable characters. It’s a dark and gritty film, but filled with very human seeming characters that avoid movie stereotypes quite effectively. The cinematography is very good, there are some interesting and poignant shots employed here that tie into the movie’s themes and character traits in interesting metaphorical ways, and the score is also pretty strong. Overall, the production values on display are pretty consistently impressive and Hodges keeps a firm hand on the movie’s pacing throughout its running time.
Clive Owen is great in the lead. His character is tough, troubled and unpredictable and Owen brings a sense of menace to the role that goes a long way towards making the movie work as well as it does. Charlotte Rampling is typically great in everything she does and her work here is no exception. Jamie Foreman’s surly, everyman qualities serve him well as Mickser while Ken Stott and Malcolm McDowell are both very well-cast as the film’s main heavies.
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead – Blu-ray Review:
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead arrives on a region free 50GB disc in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.78.1 widescreen that would seem to be taken from an older, existing master rather than a new remaster of any kind. As such, while detail is certainly improved over past DVD editions, it doesn’t rise to the heights that a new 2k or 4k scan would have been able to yield. Outside of that, the movie looks decent enough. The fairly grim color scheme is reproduced accurately and the image is clean, showing no print damage. Compression is ok, though some minor artifacts and crush do pop up here and there, while skin tones look nice and accurate.
Audio options are provided in English language 24-bit DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and a 24-bit LPCM 2.0 Stereo with optional English SDH subtitles. The 5.1 mix is pretty solid, with good depth and range to it. The track is nicely balanced and free of any hiss or distortion while presenting, crisp, clear dialogue. There’s some effective rear channel activity in some of the more action intensive scenes that helps add to the film’s atmosphere.
Extras start off with an audio commentary by director Mike Hodges and writer Trevor Preston that goes over how Preston brought Hodges the script and what drew the director to the project, how he appreciated the simplicity of the story, assembling the cast for the production and what specific actors were like to work with, some of the themes that the movie deals with, why certain shots were setup the way that they were and what makes them important, some of the locations that were used for the movie, character motivations, financing the film and lots more.
Mike Hodges And I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is a twenty-seven minute documentary that plays out like a bit of an EPK style piece, going over the quality of the film’s cast and Hodges place as director. It also covers Hodges career and directing style, exploring some of the themes his work has tackled over the years in this and other movies, details on the script and producers ad how some scenes were shot. There are interviews here with cast and crew members, including Clive Owen, as well as Hodges himself as well as quite a bit of interesting behind the scenes footage.
Finishing up the extras on the disc is the inclusion of two deleted scenes (one of which runs two minutes and has optional audio commentary by Mike Hodges and Trevor Peston, the second of which is quite brief at thirty-one seconds), the film’s original theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection options.
It’s also worth pointing out that the first 1,500 copies of this release come with a limited edition slipcover.
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead - The Final Word:
Mike Hodge’s film I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is a well-directed thriller made all the better by a really strong cast. Entertaining stuff to be sure. The Blu-ray release leaves room for improvement in the transfer quality department while still offering an upgrade over the DVD, and it includes some pretty solid extra features as well, highlighted by a genuinely interesting commentary track.