Review of The Perfect Sleep (2009) by Matthew M — 22 Jan 2012

I've always enjoyed any film related to noir, but this one was just a step too far - yes, it has impressive visuals for such a low-budget movie, but does the plot actually go anywhere? It's a muddle of past, present and future tenses without explanation, and the characterisation is pretty poor; the anti-hero, or whatever he is, talks about dames that the audience has never seen before, and we're expected to understand exactly what's going on.

It's gory and patriarchal, like any neo-noir should be, but there's always the sense of unoriginality - the film strives to do something different, but ends up just using the cliches associated with noir without even entertaining.

The only reason you'd watch this film is for the cinematography and visual style but, even then, you're probably better off watching the actually good "Sin City". It's like "The Lady from Shanghai" on acid.