Tiresome Foxx no hero cop
convincing drug barons you’ll ever see; it takes a lot more than slicked back hair to send shivers down an audience’s spine.
One-time rom-com favourite Dermot Mulroney (Rubino) fares slightly better on the dark side of the fence as a slimy entrepreneur with ties to the mob.
Best acting honours, however, go to Michelle Monaghan (Bryant) who more than holds her own in this male-heavy environment as a tough, principled Internal Affairs officer out for justice.
But even those who haven’t seen the French original will feel a serious case of deja-vu when sitting through Sleepless; think of virtually any cop movie and chances are there will be a scene or situation lifted from it here.
That’s not to say there aren’t surprises along the way as Berloff keeps us on our toes and questioning certain characters’ true motivations right up until the final reel.
Bo Odar also proves to be adept at making us wince as his frenetic camerawork and him turning the noise levels up to 11 deliver danger and nasty wounds by the bucket-load.
It’s just unfortunate that the central storyline fails to get pulses racing as by the time Vincent starts putting all the pieces together, you’ll be wishing you’d taken a different jigsaw out of its box.
Disappointing, clichéd and with a flawed hero incapable of rooting for, Sleepless suffers in comparison to even some of the genre’s more mediocre entries.
It may keep you awake during a brisk 95-minute running time, but the stuff of dreams? Far from it.