I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

Director: Mike Hodges
Year Released: 2003
Rating: 0.5

Hodges' criminally weak noir gussies up its vapid revenge story with flair and ambience, but only ends up being elusive and derivative. In not elaborating on why a key rape takes place - or delving into the politics of manhood that might shed light on its function in the movie as a whole (Malcolm McDowell's final speech hardly counts as explanation) - it offends the intellect: the movie could almost be read as a homophobic tract, equating sodomy (dubbed 'an act of power and aggression' in a carefully placed clinical moment) with evil and the act of being sodomized with the loss of power and charisma. Hodges, after making the well-rounded and playful Croupier, appears to be reverting back to his Get Carter phase of nihilism, bloodlust and barbarianism.