The Perfect Sleep (2009)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Jeremy Alter

Writer:

Anton Pardoe (writer)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Plot:

Against the backdrop of a noirish dreamscape, a tortured man returns to the city he swore he would never return to...

Cast

Anton Pardoe	...	The Narrator
Roselyn Sanchez	...	Porphyria
Patrick Bauchau	...	Nikolai
Peter J. Lucas	...	Ivan
Tony Amendola	...	Dr. Sebastian
Sam Thakur	...	The Rajah
Dominiquie Vandenberg	...	Keller
Cameron Daddo	...	Rogozhin
Michael Paré	...	Officer Pavlovich
Isaac C. Singleton Jr.	...	Gregor
John Fleck	...	Van Heflin
Dmitri S. Boudrine	...	Kolya
Anthony Dilio	...	Walter (as Anthony Dee)
Keith Allan	...	The Doctor
Pavel Lychnikoff	...	Vassily (as Pasha Lynchnikoff)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, some language and brief drug use.

Runtime:

Germany:99 min (European Film Market)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

USA:R

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Unified Pictures

Goofs:

Continuity: At about ten minutes and eighteen seconds into the film, The Narrator is awoken by a car horn outside the "warehouse". He gets up, on his knees, using the cane for support. Then the camera switches to a shot of Walter laying on the ground, his cane visible and also lying on the ground. In the next shot, Walter's cane is in The Narrator's hand again.

Soundtrack:

The Haunted Theater

An endangered species

The Perfect Sleep, while not a brilliant film does represent the ever-shrinking genre of watchable neo-noir. While it's certainly flawed, it lacks much of the intentional overly complex that robs many similar movies of their enjoyability (why watch a movie that's needlessly hard to follow?). Then again, it's not exactly a movie you can switch your brain off for.

Normally someone would put some sort of plot synopsis here, but if you've ever seen any type of noir film you know such an endeavor is pointless. They're usually a bit hard to follow and that can be part of their intrigue. Most noir-ish films rely heavily on the dialog (usually in ways that most people would never use in regular conversation), characters of moral ambiguity, and comparably lavish sets. The Perfect Sleep is no different, with the possible exception of most action sequences involving martial arts. Not sure I'd seen that before.

All in all the film comes out looking a lot like a seriously less flashy and more intelligent version of Sin City or The Spirit (the latter being complete garbage). That's actually a big plus for me as a fan of (some) noir films. While I enjoyed Sin City I always felt like it was just trying to do too much visually that took away from an arguably cool story, so that actually works well for me. Aside from the somewhat vague plot I'd say this would be at least enjoyable for fans of the genre. You don't see too many of these films these days and you see ever fewer done well.