Sleepless Night

Sleepless Night (Nuit Blanche) (2011)

Runtime: 98 minutes

Directed by: Frederic Jadin

Starring: Tomer Sisley, Julien Boisselier, Joey Starr, Lizzie Brochere

From: Many different European countries

Here's a review a long time coming, in that I should have seen this much sooner than I did. I'll explain why below in my Letterboxd review: 

Awhile back on a messageboard in a thread someone plugged this film pretty hard and I feel like a heel not only because I haven't seen it until last night but because not too many of the people who read that thread have followed his advice to see this and I think that did bother him. As it's only 2 bucks (plus that tax BS) on Amazon Instant Video I should have seen this far sooner, even if only for that guy's satisfaction.

While this movie is rather ridiculous and there are plenty of scummy characters, I can't say I wasn't entertained by this French/Belgian/Luxembourgian production. It's about a pair of dirty cops who screw up pretty bad so the young teenaged son of Vincent (one of the crooked fuzz; he happens to look like a brown curly-haired Bradley Cooper with a goatee) is kidnapped in retaliation by the drug dealer he ripped off. Most of the action happens at a crowded nightclub said drug dealer runs and things happen to go wrong so Vincent has to think on the fly and try various things to attempt to get his son back.

The movie is well-filmed and you do get to experience the feeling of being in a cramped location where you have a hard time moving around. I know the feeling from being in various nightclubs back in the day, although none were as fancy or extensive as the one you see here, Le Tarmac. Even though I found Vincent not that sympathetic of a person I was at least interested in seeing how this preposterous yet entertaining story would turn out. Without giving much away... there is shaky-cam and usually that is a turn-off but here it seemed appropriate. A lot of the action is people running away from each other-which is nicely-done-but there is a tremendous fight scene that was pretty brutal, and there's also some bullets that fly all over. It being intense and nail-biting much of the time was a big asset.

Of course it's being remade into an American film with Jamie Foxx and Michelle Mongahan and I'll just presume that won't be as good so you might as well see this, the original.