I watched this film as a huge, huge fan of the French original, SLEEPLESS NIGHT, which came out back in 2011. That's one of my favourite thrillers of recent years and I was under no illusions that this Hollywood remake would be anywhere near as good, and indeed it isn't. However, it turns out to be not too bad at all, all things considered. It has a fast pace and plenty of action, enough to see it through in most respects, and Jamie Foxx is a suitably tough protagonist. I liked the fact that certain facts and sequences have been changed around from the original movie which makes this more fun for those of us with a good knowledge of the French film, keeping us on our toes throughout. The action is nowhere near as intense, although inevitably bigger scale with machine gun shoot-outs and the like. This film seems unfairly maligned to me.

Review: Although this movie had an simplistic plot, which we have seen many times before, I still found this film quite entertaining, and the action was pretty decent. It is a bit corny in places, and the ending was quite predictable but it's intense throughout and the acting from the whole cast was believable. Jamie Foxx plays a cop, Vincent, who robs a ruthless drug dealer, Rubino (Dermot Mulroney), with his partner Sean (T.I.). When he realises who he stole the drugs from, he's immediately worried about his families safety and he tries to cut a deal with Rubino, who kidnaps his son for his drugs. For some unknown reason, he hides the drugs in a toilet, so he can bargain for his son but the internal affairs are one step behind him, and they take the drugs, which means that Vincent isn't able to get to his son back. Officer Bryant played by Michelle Monaghan, is on the hunt for Vincent, while he attempts to get to his son and the drugs that were taken by Bryant. With time against him, and his sons mum Dena (Gabrielle Union) asking uncomfortable questions about his sons whereabouts, Vincent is forced to take matters into his own hands, risking his job and his life in the process. It does seem like a "made for TV" type of movie but the double crossing from the beginning to end, leaves you questioning who he can trust. The action was surprisingly entertaining, even from Monaghan who didn't shy from throwing a few punches but it's not the type of film that become an all time classic. With that aside, it's still worth a watch, and you can't fault it in the intensity department but I was left feeling empty when the movie finished, and I won't be watching it again in a hurry. Watchable!Round-Up: This movie was directed by Baran Bo Odar (What a name!), 39, who also brought you The Silence and Who Am I in 2014. For his third film, he done a half decent job and he was lucky to get some decent actors on board but he still needs to try and do something original, so he can make his stamp in Hollywood. Jamie Foxx, who recently starred in the popular Baby Driver, has had a pretty bad track record lately with Annie, which was quite bad, and the Amazing Spiderman 2, which was also not that good but he was funny in the Horrible Bosses franchise and Django Unchained and White House Down was watchable. He's due to star in the latest Mike Tyson biopic, which is in development and he's going to play Little John in the new Robin Hood movie, starring Taron Egerton and Jamie Dornan, so he has a lot to look forward to, if the movies actually turn out to be any good. I've never really rated him as an actor but he is gradually warming to me, and his choice of movies have been pretty successful to date, even though this movie didn't smash the box office.Budget: $30million Worldwide Gross: $32millionGenre: Action, Crime, Thriller Cast: Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan, Scoot McNairy, Dermot Mulroney, T.J., David Harbour, Gabrielle Union and Octavius J. Johnson. 5/10

In Las Vegas, Vincent Downs (Jamie Foxx) and partner Sean Cass (T.I.) steal a shipment of cocaine. They turn out to be police detectives and Vincent volunteers to investigate the battle in the street. Jennifer Bryant (Michelle Monaghan) and Doug Dennison (David Harbour) from Internal Affairs are brought in on the case. Vincent is estranged from his son and his ex Dena Smith (Gabrielle Union) is newly engaged. He is surprised to find out that Stanley Rubino (Dermot Mulroney) and mob-related Rob Novak (Scoot McNairy) are the owners of the drug shipment. Then his son is kidnapped by them.This is a crime action thriller in the vein of a Michael Mann movie. There are some good action with one particularly fun fight scene. The cast is good enough and it has the potential to be a solid crime thriller. The problem is that the movie never makes me care about Vincent and I never do. There are also some logic problems although logic may not be a big sticking point. This has all the parts but fails to put them together.

Watching Sleepless is much like eating the last chalupa of the night at a run-down Taco Bell. All the ingredients are there to give you a low-rent, but still pretty satisfying experience. Yet once you actually sit down and take your first big bite, you realize everything has coagulated into an undecipherable mess. And, as if you taunt you, they managed to sneak in some fresh lettuce.The story begins with a ballsy, dark alley drug heist perpetrated by two dirty cops, Vincent Dowds (Foxx) and Sean Cass (T.I.). After a lengthy gunfight and escape, the two are assigned the next morning to their own crime scene, all but guaranteeing they're in the clear as far as the law is concerned. This doesn't sit well with Internal Affairs Agent Jennifer Bryant (Monaghan) whose recent brush with corruption has left her hyper-aware of citizens above suspicion. Dowds and Cass think they're in the clear. They think they can simply resell their score. Unfortunately, Las Vegas is a smaller town than they realize and the powers that be decide Dowd's son (Johnson) would be the perfect bargaining chip.The fresh lettuce in this case (if we decide to continue the belabored taco metaphor), is best represented by the script. Sleepless is based on the French film Nuit Blanche (2011), a movie marketed as a cross between Die Hard (1988) meets 24 (2001-2010) by way of Taken (2008). With that kind of framing, it's easy to see the influences. The mechanics of the script gifts its audience with escalating stakes, a clear time-clock, a largely singular location and an array of conflicting motivations and double-crosses.Yet in the hands of relatively green German director Baran bo Odar and the positively sleepwalking Jamie Foxx, Sleepless can't help but buckle under the weight of the script's machinations. Instead of emphasizing human emotions to gain tension and momentum, the film clumsily succumbs to the lazy rhythms of American action clichés. This requires, among other things, an obligatory car chase, the main villain mindlessly intimating his underlings, and Jamie Foxx brawling and dodge bullets with superhuman aplomb while nursing a stab wound to the abdomen. The fact that no bad guys were dispatched from the rooftop of the Luxur Hotel and Casino is a minor miracle.The results are not just second-rate, they're last-rate. Every angle of this film was shot not with maximum aesthetic appeal in mind, but to hide how embarrassingly cheap this film is. The lions share of the fight scenes take place not in the casino but in the back service corridors. The car chase I mentioned, takes place in a near empty parking garage and the climactic showstopper at the end of the movie might as well be lifted from a Troma movie.This movie either needed to be much better or much worse than it ended up being. Perhaps if they dumbed down the script further, the cheapness of the end product would have been endearing. Perhaps they could have made an unintentionally hilarious Steven Seagal vehicle. Yet with a script this patently in-love with itself, Sleepless needed to rise to the challenge and unfortunately it folded like a bad hand of poker. The European version may have been a smart, effective and thrilling mix of genre influences, but this American remake feels like Triple 9 (2016) meets Urban Justice (2007) by way of a pile of s**t.