Sleepless Night

Sleepless Night is a French thriller about a cop who may be corrupt, who may be stupid, and who must be indestructible. Unfortunately, what he is not is a fully-realized character.

Here's the setup: French action star Tomer Sisley (Well, he was born in Berlin, but his movies are French. It's the EU, people!) is a cop who has stolen a bag of narcotics. The original owner wants it returned, so he's kidnapped Sisley's son. Now, all Sisley has to do is rescue his son, evade the Internal Affairs officers who are hunting for him, and get home safely. Where must he accomplish these tasks in one (you guessed it – sleepless) night? A nightclub so loud, so labyrinthine, so crazy that nobody runs when various good – or – evildoers pull guns and start shooting.

That's fun stuff, and it offers well-staged fights, plenty of twists and turns, and almost everything one could ask for from a film entitled Sleepless Night. But there's a hollowness at the center of Sleepless Night that saps the film of its energy: at no time does the viewer feel he or she is watching real people. The cop is just that – a cop of questionable integrity who turns into a fighting machine when his son is threatened. The thugs are just thugs, the kingpins kingpins, and the child in distress just a child in distress. One can't shake the feeling that this film could have been more, had it dared to give us people rather than notecards.

Ah, well. They can't all be winners.