If you find yourself wondering why they don't make movies like Die Hard anymore, you might want to start looking abroad for your action fix. While American movies tend to stuff their action scenes with CGI creatures and superheroes, a lot of foreign films are getting down to the bare-bones action, whether it's the martial arts of upcoming Indonesian action film The Raid or the pulsing, mano-e-mano skirmishes that make up Sleepless Night, the French action film coming to video on demand on April 17. You could easily describe it as "Die Hard in a nightclub," with a policeman (Tomer Sisley) trying to recover his kidnapped son from within the packed nightclub owned by the kidnapper. There are guns and fights and about half a dozen great action scenes-- and if there's CGI in there, I didn't notice it. I saw the movie as part of the Midnight Madness program at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, and like everybody else who caught it, I was dazzled.
In advance of Sleepless Night's arrival in the United States-- the VOD premiere will be followed by a select theatrical release in May-- we've premiering the film's poster right here. Take a look below, and click on it for the larger version:
That quote from Matt Singer is no lie-- Sleepless Night is the exact ideal of action movies we don't make anymore, so much that Warner Bros. has acquired the rights to remake it. So before the American remake is inevitably less cool, make sure to catch Sleepless Night and get a sense of the greatness of the original.
Below is the official synopsis for the film if you want to know more.
Sleepless Night tells the story of Vincent, a respected and dedicated police officer – or so it seems. After he and a colleague are recognized while stealing a massive bag of cocaine from drug dealers employed by local mob boss Marciano, Vincent quickly finds himself trapped in a situation that no parent would envy: his son has been kidnapped with the promise of execution if he doesn’t immediately deliver the bag back to its rightful owner. Vincent heads to Marciano’s nightclub on the outskirts of Paris to make the swap, but competing interests and misplaced loyalties soon threaten to complicate the exchange. The ensuing game of cat-and-mouse quickly spirals into madness, sprawling across every seedy back room and pulsating, claustrophobic inch of the crowded dance floor. With enemies on all sides and time working against him, the night to come might not only be the longest but also the last of Vincent and his young son’s life.
