On April 17, the crime-detective thriller «Sleeping Dogs» starring Russell Crowe and Karen Gillan was released in cinemas. Its plot is based on the bestselling book by Romanian writer Eugene Kirovitz called «Book of Mirrors», which appeared on bookstore shelves in 2017. In the review below, we will tell you how successful the screenwriter’s directorial debut was «Assassin’s Creed» (2016) by Adam Cooper.
Pluses:
a well-constructed, moderately exciting detective intrigue; good acting, particularly from Russell Crowe and Karen Gillan; the slow pace of the narrative and its non-linear structure are appropriate and not a problem here;
Minuses:
some moments in the plot are surprising in a negative sense (for example, why no one thought to take away a firearm from a person with Alzheimer's disease); the denouement is quite predictable and hardly surprising;
«Sleeping Dogs»
Genre crime detective thriller
Director Adam Cooper
Starring Russell Crowe, Karen Gillan, Marton Csokas, Tommy Flanagan, Harry Greenwood, Thomas M. Wright, Elizabeth Blackmore, Lynn Gilmartin, Pacharo Mzembe, Paula Arundell
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb, official website
Former homicide detective Roy Freeman suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. He has stickers everywhere in his house with various information, ranging from his own name to instructions on how to heat food in the microwave or instructions on which handle on the tap is responsible for cold water. Which handle is responsible for warm water. Roy is undergoing experimental treatment and, on the recommendation of his doctor, is also trying to keep his mind sharp, and completing a simple puzzle helps him do so.
One day, a human rights activist contacts the man and informs him that Isaac Samuel, a prisoner on death row for murdering a man, wants to talk to Roy. After all, it was he and his partner Jimmy Remis who handled the case 10 years ago, and under pressure from the latter, the frightened young man confessed to the crime. However, now he claims the opposite and says that on that fateful day, someone else was in the house of the deceased Professor Joseph Weaver.
At first, Freeman is skeptical of Isaac’s excuses, seeing them as the last attempts of a man doomed to death to avoid a terrible punishment. However, out of curiosity, he plunges into the investigation and realizes that something clearly doesn’t add up.
In recent years, Russell Crowe hasn’t been pleasing his fans with any bright roles. On the contrary, the winner of the «Oscar» for his role in the cult neo-popularity «Gladiator» (2000) has mostly been wasting his time on all sorts of nonsense, such as two one-day horror films in a year, both dedicated to the same topic — «The Pope’s Exorcist» (2023) and «The Exorcism» (2024), or participation in a superhero thriller «Thor: Love and Thunder» (2022) or «Craven the Hunter» (2024).
Fortunately, Russell fits the role of the wise-cracking, gloomy former detective like a glove. Moreover, it is the movie starring him that can finally be called one worth paying attention to.
The aforementioned Adam Cooper and his co-screenwriter Bill Collage decided to abandon the structure of the literary source, which consists of three parts (and Roy Freeman himself appears only in the third) and divided the story into chapters, each of which is dedicated to a particular character. This approach seems appropriate because as the protagonist gradually puts this puzzle together, bit by bit, the viewer will constantly learn new details. Despite the rather unhurried pace of the story, this avoids boredom.
It is logical that everyone involved falls into the field of view of Crowe’s character; even his former partner, who seems not to be very happy with Roy’s desire to return to the case. Other interesting personalities include Professor Laura Baines, a graduate student, a typical femme fatale in noir stories; Richard Finn, a student and her lover; and Wayne Devereaux, a PTSD veteran and now a handyman who is taken under his wing by Wieder.
Each of them could have done something irreparable, and each of them could have had their own motives. It’s not to say that the local investigation is directly impressive with its plot twists, but it’s still interesting to watch what happens on the screen.
The detective’s meeting with his former colleague, despite the friendly hugs and shared beer, raises some doubts in the viewer. Then the camera switches to a flashback with a bizarre love triangle, which, by the way, might not have existed because the information obtained risks being a banal fiction. But the one who could tell us something useful strangely dies of a drug overdose.
Cooper and Collage are trying their best to confuse, lead down the wrong path, and at certain moments even question the adequacy of the protagonist’s perception of reality by his inflamed brain. However, two things are more than obvious here. The first is that the poor man behind bars, awaiting his death sentence, is definitely innocent of anything. The second is that in the end, all the pieces of the puzzle will merge into a single picture, just like the symbolic puzzle on the table of the sick ex-detective. On the other hand, it is not difficult to predict the solution presented as a revelation. This does not make «Sleeping Dogs» a bad movie.
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