I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

Thanks primarily to the bruising Get Carter (1971); Mike Hodges has always been granted a special place in the lineage of British gangster films. However, he doesn't quite make a winning return to the mean streets with the London gangland thriller, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, a stylish but incoherent noir-esque affair that doesn't quite seem to know what its purpose is. Clive Owen is almost unrecognisable under a heavy beard and shaggy hairstyle as Will Graham. A former crime lord in the East End, he abandoned the life some three years previous and now, somewhat implausibly, lives out of the back of his transit van, eking out a living as a woodcutter. He's drawn back to his old haunts after his coke dealing younger brother; Davey (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) winds up dead, having apparently taken his own life. Since Will was such a formidable player in gangland circles, quite a few people, including his former rival, Turner (Ken Stott), are rather worried about his return.

Like Get Carter, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead deals with the very cinematic theme of vengeance after a sibling is murdered and it's a film rich in atmosphere. Set mostly in London's Brixton, Hodges conjures up a beautifully shot, moody-looking film, and one where the sense of menace and violence pervades virtually every frame. Unfortunately, atmospherics are about as good as it gets, for the rest of the picture doesn't make an awful lot of sense. Characters' actions and motivations can be charitably described as bewildering, while the plot moves in a wide and not very convincing arc, with the dialogue far too clunky. In fact, as the film progresses, Hodges seems to revel in making things as oblique as possible, eventually settling on conclusion that is as bizarre as it is implausible.