I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (film)
| I'll Sleep When I'm Dead | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Mike Hodges |
| Produced by | Michael Corrente Mike E.Kaplan |
| Written by | Trevor Preston |
| Starring |
Clive Owen Jonathan Rhys-Meyers Malcolm McDowell |
| Music by | Simon Fisher-Turner |
| Cinematography | Michael Garfath |
| Edited by | Paul Carlin |
| Distributed by | Paramount Classics |
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Release date
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Running time
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102 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $490,964 |
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead is a 2003 British crime film directed by Mike Hodges, from a screenplay by Philip Korf. The film bears many striking similarities to Hodges' directorial debut, the classic 1971 crime drama Get Carter. Both films feature men who return to their former hometowns to investigate the death of a brother who has died under mysterious circumstances.
Davey Graham (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) arrives at an upper class party to sell drugs to a woman named Stella. As he leaves, Stella's date watches him and makes a call on his cell phone. Outside the party, three men are waiting for Davey in a black Range Rover, including a car dealer named Boad (Malcolm McDowell). The men follow Davey around London, finally attacking him just as he's headed home. Two of the men wait for Davey as Boad waits down an alley. Both men grab him, and one of them holds his hand over his mouth to muffle his cries for help. They then drag him off the street and into a garage, where they hold him down as Boad rapes him. At dawn, Davey emerges from the garage and stumbles home, where he draws a bath for himself and gets in fully clothed. Several hours later, his friend Mickser (Jamie Foreman) arrives to pick up Davey. He discovers Davey dead in the bathtub, with his throat slashed. Mickser visits Helen (Charlotte Rampling) and asks her how to get in touch with Davey's brother Will (Clive Owen). She says that she has stopped receiving letters from Will, who left London three years earlier.
Will has been working as a logger in the country. He's unshaven with long hair, and he lives out of a van. After he's fired from his job for having no papers, he heads to the sea to take a ferry out of England when he sees Davey in the terminal. After realizing it was a hallucination, he begins calling Davey's flat. Receiving no answer, he returns to London, where he learns that Davey is dead.
His return to London stirs up the anxiety of crime boss Frank Turner (Ken Stott), who sends word to Will that he should leave town after he buries his brother. Will's old cohorts urge him to return for good, saying that Turner could be overtaken easily. Will makes it clear that he is not interested in returning to his old life. He visits Helen and apologizes for leaving her. He explains that he has been grieving for 'a life wasted', lamenting the fact that Davey also wasted his.
Will orders a second post-mortem to try to determine why Davey would kill himself. It reveals that he was raped the night before he died, in addition to the fact that Davey ejaculated during the rape. The coroner explains that it was a result of the anal stimulation, surmising that Davey probably killed himself over the shame he felt after involuntarily ejaculating during the rape. He refers Will to a psychologist who can explain the phenomenon more eloquently. As Will listens to the psychologist explain the mindset of the rapist and the mental damage of a rape victim, he takes his first drink in three years.
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