Movie Review: ‘Sleeping Dogs’ Starring Russell Crowe

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Review by James Lindorf

It is a big month for memory loss thrillers, with “Sleeping Dogs” coming hot on the heels of Michael Keaton’s dementia-plagued hitman flick “Knox Goes Away.” Like Keaton, Russell Crowe continues his evolution from leading man to character actor with his latest thriller under first-time director Adam Cooper. Cooper partnered with writer Bill Collage to adapt Romain author E. O. Chirovici’s 2017 novel “Book of Mirrors.” Memory loss has long been used to, at best, add flair to a thriller or, more commonly, be used as a crutch for writers who don’t know how to pull their own story together. Audiences around the country will find out which category “Sleeping Dogs” lies in when it begins a limited theatrical release schedule on March 22nd.

Chirovici told his story in three parts, with the character of Roy Freeman not introduced until the book’s final arc. Cooper and Collage reworked the story to make Freeman (Russell Crowe) the film’s protagonist, with the other two leads becoming complementary characters. Freeman is a retired homicide detective; if you call getting kicked off the force for causing an alcohol-fueled car accident, retirement. Even if he had managed to stay sober, Freeman did not have a long career ahead of him once his memory began to fracture due to early onset Alzheimer’s. While undergoing a radical new treatment to heal his mind, Freeman is called on to revisit a decade-old murder investigation with an inmate’s life hanging in the balance. Freeman has one month to piece together his memories and uncover a sinister web of buried secrets and betrayals to find the truth. The rest of the cast includes Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy), Márton Csókás (xXx), who is acting with Crowe for the third time, Thomas M. Wright (Everest), Harry Greenwood (Hacksaw Ridge), and Tommy Flanagan (Sons of Anarchy).

From the opening scene, we are clued into Freeman’s struggles. He has a series of simple reminders adorning the mirror in his bathroom, bandages on his head, and a stack of frozen dinners in the freezer. With no plans other than challenging his mind by working on jigsaw puzzles per his doctor’s orders, he is offered the ultimate puzzle when the old case lands in his lap. Freeman quickly falls down a rabbit hole of memoirs, stolen research, a grumpy ex-partner (Tommy Flanagan), and a love triangle between the murdered college professor (Marton Csokas), his former assistant (Harry Greenwood) and the university’s brightest femme fatale (Karen Gillan). With plenty of motives and suspects, the retired detective seems to have an insurmountable amount of information to unravel.

Crowe is giving a solid performance, and Csokas is bringing all of his charisma, which is equal parts formidable and sex appeal. Then there is Gillan, who is typically a standout but struggles to embrace the aloof sex dynamo character that combines the best of Sheldon and Penny from “Big Bang Theory.” While the story has plenty of faults, the biggest drag on the film is Gillan’s performance because it brings any enjoyment we may have been having to a screeching halt. To be fair to her, any fun is limited as the story goes on. Possibly, it was because Cooper and Collage didn’t know how to place the breadcrumbs, which would allow the audience to pick up on what really happened. It could also be because they didn’t know how to satisfactorily tie all the threads together. Still, the most likely culprit is the strength of the adaptation. You can never bring hundreds of pages of a novel to life on film; plot threads and characters must be trimmed to get to the heart of the story. It appears they were reluctant to make the necessary cuts to elements that didn’t coincide with the new direction of making Freeman the focal point. Too much time is dedicated to flashbacks where Freeman is not involved when we should be staying with him every step of the way as he pieces the truth together.

“Sleeping Dogs” starts off well, picks up steam, and drifts to an unsatisfying conclusion. It is on par with many of the later Liam Neeson action films but could have been so much more. The Alzheimer’s does little more than serve as a way to give the movie a twist without providing a significant physical or emotional hurdle for Freeman. He seems less like someone with a debilitating disease and just like a guy later in life struggling to remember the details from an event 10 years ago. I’m not 40 yet, and I can’t tell you about random workdays five years ago. Not even five weeks ago. “Sleeping Dogs” earns a 2 out of 5 for visual competence and a solid lead performance but loses points for a loose narrative and inconsistent direction and acting.

Rating: R
Genre: Mystery & thriller, Crime, Drama
Original Language: English
Director: Adam Cooper
Producer: Mark Fasano, Adam Cooper, Deborah Glover, Pouya Shahbazian, Bill Collage, Arun Kumar
Writer: Adam Cooper, Bill Collage
Limited Theatrical Release: March 22nd, 2024
Runtime: 1h 50m
Distributor: The Avenue