If one looks at each British gangster film as a cup of tea, Mike Hodges's I'll Sleep When I'm Dead is the stale leaves left at the bottom, void of any kind of robustness. I don't mean that in a bad way, as it's a very well made film, but it's also bleak, bitter and populated by characters whose lives have derailed into ditches branching off from what their lives used to be. A shaggy, unkempt Clive Owen plays Will Graham, a former gangster who has relegated himself into obscurity, dwelling in a caravan situated in a rural forest, and peeing into milk jugs. For whatever reason, he's a ghost of his former self and would have it remain that way. Life (and the necessities of plot) has a funny way of turning plans on their head, though. Will has a brash, cocky younger brother (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an upstart hoodlum who peddles pharmaceuticals at shitty nite clubs and fancies himself top dog. One night he's kidnapped, sodomizes (yes you read that right) and set free, after which, consumed by the trauma, he takes his own life. The perpetrator is a shady automobile tycoon named Boad (Malcolm McDowell) whose reasons for such a nasty and frankly odd act aren't revealed till the third act. Will forced out of recluse and heads to London to rendezvous with his former pal (Jamie Foreman) as well as an old acquaintance (Charlotte Rampling). Owen brings a tired, worn out presence that sometimes flares up with the violent resolve his character no doubt used to have. McDowell steals the show in a role that's really a tough one to get your head around, for both audience and actor. He's actor twisted guy who has committed a heinous act, and Malcolm is kind of a go to guy for creeps and villains. And yet.. in the blistering final confrontation, he lucidly lays down his logic with unnerving gravitas, sticking it to anyone that was expecting his performance to fall back on perverse theatrics (this ain't no clockwork orange). It's and wonderful final scene given the time to breathe and play out before the inevitable violence happens. As far as crime films go, this one trades in energy and attitude for a frayed narrative in which the lines of good and evil are slightly maimed to shed light on humans with the capacity for both in equal measures, and often all at once.
