Somewhere in between playing an exorcist… twice… Russell Crowe thought this Memento-esque crime drama was something he needed to check off his bucket list. This is, of course, Academy Award Winner Russell Crowe, and I guess he hasn’t switch his phone bill to one of the hot button cheap alternatives, so he’s gotta pay the bills. Theatrical has gotten weird, as a medium, as films that look like they would go theatrical end up being really good fodder for these mystery movie nights these major chains host. I know Liam Neeson has had more than a few of his recent turds spawned on an unsuspecting audience this way, and I would not be surprised if Sleeping Dogs was one of those.
I am not aware of this film having a recorded audio description track, but I did pull this off Hulu. I’m not really blaming Hulu, because I didn’t see this on any VOD services with audio description. Though, my statement here is that if you can pay for Russell Crowe, you can pay for audio description.
Which is largely why I watched what is yet another Alzheimer’s thriller. Liam Neeson has already one of these in his belt, and a very similar film this year starring Michael Keaton takes another look at aging and memory loss in the crime world. Here, Crowe is a retired detective, who inexplicably gets a random call to talk to a death row inmate, who claims he was innocent, and he decides to follow up on this claim, despite the fact that he enters most every conversation asking people to describe something after they’ve learned that he has suffered and continues to suffer from memory loss. So, if you did the crime, why bother telling him? He’s not going to be a credible witness, and if you lie, he won’t remember that it wasn’t how that happened.
There’s. No great twist here, except perhaps the reasoning behind everything at the end, but it isn’t like Crowe is faking being addled to further the plot. This is also deeply difficult to follow without audio description, as it does jump backward in time, and it isn’t the most dialog heavy script ever. It’s a detective story, where clues matter, and obviously we lose out on that too.
Karen Gillan is horribly miscast in a femme fatale role, and despite my love for her, she has all the enthusiasm as a preschooler being forced to be quiet and sit still during pretty much anything they don’t want to do.
Like I said, this is akin to Memento, which is a much better film. I’m not aware of that having audio description, but damn near anything with a gumshoe in it is probably better. If the director wants to challenge my opinion, he can send me an accessible copy of the film, and I’ll see if audio description changes the game. Technically, because I’m blind, this isn’t getting a grade, though I’m leaning on that I don’t think I’d be swinging fresh on this even with accessibility.
Final Grade: Unwatchable
