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I'LL SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD Send This Review to a Friend
There’s a mystique about actor Clive Owen that works just right with the sensibility of director Mike Hodges, and that combination makes this British excursion into film noir click niftily. The atmosphere is moody, the build-up tense. Owen plays Will, who has left the criminal world behind him and is doing honest work in a lumber camp in Scotland.
When Will learns that his drug-selling brother Davey (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) has died under mysterious circumstances in London, Will returns to dig out the truth about what happened and if revenge is called for, make sure that he gets it.
Malcolm McDowell has an eerie role as the villainous gangster Boad and McDowell extracts the most from the part. What would a noir be without a woman in the picture? Always interesting Charlotte Rampling plays Helen, with whom Will had been in love. She adds to the mystique and to the complications in Will’s mission.
The action glides along, steadily working toward the climax with all the attendant dangers. Owen is perfect for the part—cool, enigmatic and conveying utter determination to get even no matter the cost to himself. A Paramount Classics release.
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