Another sleepless night, Patrick drags himself into the BMTHQ offices. “You look like trash barrels, my man,” chides Jamie, Reebok Pumps kicked up on his desk. Patrick smiles. “Six kids will do that to yah. This latest one seems determined to make sure I don’t sleep ever again.” He yawns and looks down pensively. “Jamie… do you ever wonder if there is more to life than bad movies?” Jamie is shocked and frankly disturbed by this line of thinking. But how to delicately head off where this conversation is heading? “You wanna fight about it?” he blurts out much to Patrick’s frustration. “You wanna fight about it, bro?” he repeats, ripping off his denim t-shirt for emphasis. Patrick shakes his head. This is exactly what he had been afraid of. The company was on solid footing, their worldwide fame unshakeable. But every time he even broached the subject of a little time off Jamie would end up screaming at him shirtless. He turns away shaking his head in dismay. Realizing he perhaps crossed the line this time, Jamie offers a compromise. “Hey man, you know, we could always cut down dance class to three half days a week… and, uh, maybe we could go on that European backpacking trip you always wanted to go on.” At that Patrick perks up.
“Oh, no no no,” Patrick mutters from his perch far up on the roof of the building next door to BMTHQ. “They’ve already agreed to go on the trip.” Jamie and Patrick are back in 2017, the genesis of the European backpacking trip that first brought them into contact with the Obsidian Dongle. “You really did look like shit,” Jamie says chuckling as he peers through the binoculars. “Maybe you just needed a good night’s rest.” A lightbulb goes off. That’s right! We hit up another remake of a French film with Sleepless starring Jamie Foxx. It’s got a grade A Las Vegas setting and a grade C everything else. Let’s go!
Sleepless (2017) – BMeTric: 43.0; Notability: 25
StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 13.2%; Notability: top 18.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 14.5%; Higher BMeT: The Emoji Movie, Fifty Shades Darker, Death Note, Jeepers Creepers III, Rings, The Bye Bye Man, Snatched, The Snowman, Transformers: The Last Knight, The Layover, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, Leatherface, Amityville: The Awakening, Flatliners, Geostorm, Wish Upon, The Circle, The Mummy, Unforgettable, Baywatch, and 13 more; Higher Notability: Transformers: The Last Knight, Justice League, Sandy Wexler, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, The Mummy, The Emoji Movie, Geostorm, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, The Current War, Bright, Tulip Fever, Suburbicon, American Assassin, Baywatch, The Dark Tower, CHIPS, Fifty Shades Darker, Pitch Perfect 3, The House, The Snowman, and 26 more; Lower RT: The Layover, Naked, Flatliners, Hangman, The Emoji Movie, The Snowman, Rings, Tulip Fever, Fifty Shades Darker, The Vanishing of Sidney Hall, First Kill, The Dark Tower, The Circle, The Mummy, Transformers: The Last Knight, The Space Between Us, Jeepers Creepers III, Father Figures, Baywatch, Geostorm, and 15 more; Notes: I would say that Amityville: The Awakening is the most intriguing of the Higher BMeT films. It is a bit of a blind spot that I’ve never seen a single Amityville film, and there are a bajillion (mostly non-qualifying) films at this point.
RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – “Sleepless” is one of those movies that needed to be a lot better or a lot worse to make much of an impression. This story of a Las Vegas police officer trying to recover his kidnapped son from bad guys is frustratingly not-terrible. The action sequences, the characterizations, the performances, all could have come together to form a dandy example of what used to be a called a B-movie: a genre film that doesn’t have much money to play with but compensates with ingenuity and style. And yet “Sleepless” somehow quite never gets to that level. Its rare moments of quality only make the rest of the movie—a mishmash of conspiratorial plotting and close-quarters fistfights and gunfights—seem lamer. As directed by Baran bo Odar (2010’s “The Silence”) and scripted by “World Trade Center” writer Andrea Berloff, this remake of the 2011 French film “Sleepless Night” is funny sometimes but not funny enough, exciting sometimes but never exciting enough, and inherently emotional (mainly due to the hero’s anguished desire to save his son) yet never willing to run with the emotionalism and turn into a full-blown action melodrama.
(I feel like if Ebert wrote this he might have been slightly more dour about it. He loved his “good for what it is” films, but this is “bad for what it is” and that is when you really need to destroy a film. Anyways, he also wouldn’t have used the word “lamer” I feel like.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA7JW9Zj2-g/
(Wowza is that intense. Here’s the thing, in the original Sleepless they barely indicate that the cop is undercover. It is more like they suggest it as a possibility and then leave it up to the viewer to decide whether it is believable. Here? It is a giant part of the trailer! That’s crazy. This just looks like a generic action film at this point.)
Directors – Baran bo Odar – ( Known For: Who Am I; The Silence; BMT: Sleepless; Notes: He directed the German television show Dark! Bar none one of the greatest sci-fi television shows ever created. It is great.)
Writers – Andrea Berloff – ( Known For: Straight Outta Compton; Blood Father; World Trade Center; Future BMT: The Kitchen; BMT: Sleepless; Notes: Nominated for an Oscar for Straight Outta Compton.)
Frédéric Jardin – ( Known For: Thoongaavanam; Sleepless Night; Cravate club; BMT: Sleepless; Notes: He wrote and directed the original film, Sleepless Night. His father was a major French screenwriter in the 60s.)
Nicolas Saada – ( Known For: Sleepless Night; My Golden Days; Taj Mahal; En jouant ‘Dans la compagnie des hommes’; BMT: Sleepless; Notes: French, and has a credit here for helping to write Sleepless Night.)
Olivier Douyère – ( Known For: Sleepless Night; Secret Agents; Scènes de crimes; BMT: Sleepless; Notes: Same, has a credit for Sleepless Night, which was also his last actual credit on IMDb. There is nothing else about him.)
Actors – Jamie Foxx – ( Known For: Spider-Man: No Way Home; Django Unchained; Collateral; Baby Driver; The Amazing Spider-Man 2; Soul; Miami Vice; Horrible Bosses; White House Down; Just Mercy; Rio; Jarhead; Project Power; Ray; Any Given Sunday; Rio 2; Dreamgirls; Ali; The Kingdom; I’m Still Here; Future BMT: Law Abiding Citizen; A Million Ways to Die in the West; Robin Hood; Annie; Due Date; Horrible Bosses 2; The Players Club; Booty Call; Bait; Held Up; Breakin’ All the Rules; BMT: Valentine’s Day; Stealth; Sleepless; Toys; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Supporting Actor for Robin Hood in 2019; Notes: He was nominated for two oscars in 2005 for Ray and Collateral and won for Ray. His birth name is Eric Bishop. He just had a film come out called Day Shift.)
Michelle Monaghan – ( Known For: Mission: Impossible – Fallout; Constantine; Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol; Unfaithful; Mission: Impossible III; Gone Baby Gone; The Bourne Supremacy; Mr. & Mrs. Smith; Source Code; Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; Black Site; The Craft: Legacy; Patriots Day; Every Breath You Take; North Country; Machine Gun Preacher; Somewhere; The Vanishing of Sidney Hall; Playing It Cool; Nanny; Future BMT: The Best of Me; The Heartbreak Kid; Due Date; Eagle Eye; It Runs in the Family; BMT: Pixels; Made of Honor; Sleepless; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Supporting Actress for Pixels in 2016; Notes: Still going strong. Her “big” movie this year is Blacksite which also stars BMT superstar Jai Courtney.)
Dermot Mulroney – ( Known For: Along for the Ride; Zodiac; Stoker; Gone in the Night; Young Guns; Burn After Reading; August: Osage County; My Best Friend’s Wedding; Careful What You Wish For; The Grey; Agent Game; Insidious: Chapter 3; Deadly Illusions; J. Edgar; Copycat; About Schmidt; The Family Stone; Point of No Return; The Thing Called Love; Jolene; Future BMT: Career Opportunities; Angels in the Outfield; Umma; The Mountain Between Us; The Wedding Date; Bad Girls; Must Love Dogs; Sunset; Goodbye Lover; BMT: Dirty Grandpa; Abduction; Georgia Rule; Jobs; Sleepless; Notes: It feels like he actually might mainly be famous for being the titular best friend in My Best Friend’s Wedding. He was in a film called Cats and I was like what?! But nope, different film called Cats somehow.)
Budget/Gross – $30 million / Domestic: $20,783,704 (Worldwide: $32,917,353)
(Yeah not what you want. This is the type of film which if it was any good would have done maybe $60 million at the box office, but then it would have done big business late on television and streaming. And that sequel they teased would have also definitely been made.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 25% (15/61): Sleepless wastes a talented cast — and solid source material — on a tired crime drama whose clichés rapidly outnumber its thrills.
(Sounds about right. It does seem like a very cliche “sweaty” crime thriller. It seems impossible to be comfortable running around in trousers in Las Vegas. Unless you are in a casino all day which I guess Jamie Foxx is.)
Reviewer Highlight: We get muttering and glowering from Mr. Foxx, a story that can’t manage enough twists to tie a shoelace, and set pieces that have been done better in other movies. – A.O. Scott, New York Times
Poster – Sheeples
(Striking. I gotta say I kinda dig it for a “big star” style poster. Stylish up top and then pops at the bottom with Las Vegas lights. Couple quibbles. The font is horrific of course. Also, the glove he’s wearing is distracting. B.)
Tagline(s) – Don’t judge a cop by his cover. (A+++)
(Ooooooohhhhhhh shit. Clear out the way cause Sleepless is driving down the lane for a windmill dunk. With no regard for human life. This is what I live for! Don’t judge a cop by his cover. I have chills. My word.)
Keyword(s) – European Remake
Top 10: 12 Monkeys (1995), The Italian Job (2003), Insomnia (2002), Scent of a Woman (1992), Clash of the Titans (2010), Some Like It Hot (1959), Vanilla Sky (2001), True Lies (1994), Dawn of the Dead (2004), The Tourist (2010)
Future BMT: 54.5 Eye of the Beholder (1999), 54.0 Downhill (2020), 49.2 The Omen (2006), 47.1 Nine Months (1995), 44.8 Catch That Kid (2004), 44.4 Brick Mansions (2014), 43.1 Diabolique (1996), 43.0 Village of the Damned (1995), 41.8 I Think I Love My Wife (2007), 41.2 Clash of the Titans (2010)
BMT: The Wicker Man (2006), Taxi (2004), The Haunting (1999), Get Carter (2000), Jungle 2 Jungle (1997), Pathfinder (2007), Fathers’ Day (1997), The Big Wedding (2013), Sleepless (2017), The Blue Lagoon (1980), School for Scoundrels (2006), Blame It on Rio (1984), Vanilla Sky (2001)
Best Options (Action): 44.8 Catch That Kid (2004), 44.4 Brick Mansions (2014), 43.1 Sleepless (2017), 41.2 Clash of the Titans (2010), 34.2 The Tourist (2010), 32.9 Memory (2022), 21.6 The Jackal (1997), 20.6 Three Fugitives (1989)
(So we aren’t doing Catch That Kid, which would have been a good choice in general. But we are doing Brick Mansions soon, it ended up being a very rare future-set European remake. Cruising along. It is kind of amazing we aren’t doing Eye of the Beholder this cycle (we were very close, but chose a different thriller.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 14) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Jamie Foxx is No. 1 billed in Sleepless and No. 2 billed in Toys, which also stars LL Cool J (No. 6 billed) who is in Rollerball (No. 2 billed) which also stars Chris Klein (No. 1 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 2 billed) => (1 + 2) + (6 + 2) + (1 + 2) = 14. If we were to watch Jack, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 11.
Notes – In an interview on 5/23/17 The Howard Stern Show SiriusXm. Howard Stern asks Jamie which film of his is hardest for him to watch. Jamie recognizes that (Sleepless 2017) as the hardest film for him to watch. Jamie Fox: “Sleepless was a motherfu**a.”
Remake of the French-Belgian movie Sleepless Night (2011) (“Sleepless Night”).
English-language debut of Swiss director Baran bo Odar.
Bad Movie Twins 