Sleeping Dogs

Director: Adam Cooper
Starring: Russell Crowe, Karen Gillan, Marton Csokas, Tommy Flanagan, Thomas M Wright, Harry Greenwood
Distributor: Rialto Distribution
Runtime: 110 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2024
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
| JustWatch |
Rating notes: Strong coarse language

An ex-homicide detective with memory loss is forced to solve a brutal murder, only to uncover chilling secrets from his forgotten past.
The metaphor of the title indicates that sometimes it may be better to leave past events as they were because we do not know what revelations will appear if the past is stirred. And that happens here in an interesting and evocative way.
This is a very American story. Police, death row and executions, investigating cold cases, psychology and experimentation, drugs to suppress PTSD memories, experiments to reactivate memory. However, Sleeping Dogs was, made in Australia, with a mainly Australian cast, as well New Zealander Csokas; and Gillan and Flanagan from Scotland. (Of interest, Greenwood is the son of Hugo Weaving; Wright was a writer-director of the award-winning drama, The Stranger, 2022).
Crowe gives an interesting performance as a former police officer of 20 years, Roy Freeman. Involved in a drink-driving accident with damage to his skull and brain, Freeman is undergoing a particular therapy to try to reactivate his memory, to redirect the neural paths of his brain. We see him at home, notes everywhere around his apartment indicating how he is to act, his name, preparing a meal . . .We see him undergoing his treatment and moments when memory begins to return.
However, the key to the drama is a prisoner coming to appeal to Roy to reopen his case because he is about to be executed and professes his innocence. Initially sceptical, something alerts Roy and he begins to investigate.
Which, clearly, is the point where a reviewer has to go no further with the narrative. Rather, there can be a whetting of the audience appetite to indicate who the central characters are. Csokas’s appears as Dr Wieder, a talented psychologist who is working on the program for suppressing PTSD memories. Laura Baines (Gillan) is his equally talented associate in the research. There is the enigmatic writer, Richard Finn (Greenwood). At his home, there is an Iraq war veteran, Wayne Devereaux (Wright), doing repair jobs. Flanagan plays Roy’s former partner Jimmy Remis who is approached by Roy to help him pursue the case.
It is a different kind of police investigation, unearthing different clues, some plot twists, and, depending on how many films one has seen, an expected or unexpected ending.


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