AT TRIBECA: SLEEPLESS NIGHT

The last couple/few years have seen an atypically high number of awesome thrillers coming out of France. Maybe it's just that I've seen all of them and it isn't actually all that atypical, but Tell No One was great, Point Blank was awesome (unpopular opinion alert: it was better than the John Boorman picture), and now there's Sleepless Night (original title: Nuit Blanche) which is both everything that you'd ever hope to want from a cop/gangster picture and yet one that almost seems like it was made by someone who'd never seen one before. In the best possible way.

Sleepless Night unfolds in a way that renders assumptions about what kind of picture it is and who its characters are absolutely worthless. Apparent stick-up artists turn out to be cops. Friends are covert enemies. Gangsters feel remorse about the dirt they do. People hide in plain sight. Brilliant plans go awry. Utterly fucking ridiculous extemporizing actually works. Pretty early on, you realize the only thing to do is just sit back and bask. Well, if the way you “sit back” is on the edge of your seat chewing your knuckle to keep from shattering glass with high-pitched “what the fuck . . .?”s. Because while it may not follow conventional diagrammatic thriller beats, this shit is fucking intense, dude.

For such a complex and nuanced movie, the basic premise is quite simple: Vincent (Tomer Sisley) and Manu (Laurent Stocker) pull a rip and run on a couple coke dealers, one of whom gets got, the other of whom gets away. Vincent catches one in the crossfire, but tis but a flesh wound and in any case they get the coke. It then transpires that Vincent and Lauren are cops, with an eye out for a mean-as-a-snake Internal Affairs bull (Julien Boisselier, at times bearing an eerie physical and vocal resemblance to Aiden Gillen). Vincent's son (Samy Seghir, who gives an excellent kid performance) busts his balls because all his police work has him a bit distant and mercurial. Vincent barely has time to reflect on how just the ball-busting is before the gangster whose coke he and Manu ripped kidnaps the kid and holds him in his massive demimonde multiplex (I mean, shit, there's a disco, a bar, a restaurant, a pool hall, and a whorehouse all in separate parts of the building under the same roof; if the place wasn't crawling with angry French people with guns I'd totally fucking hang out there). Vincent's task? Bring the coke, trade it for the kid. If you put twenty euros on “there's no way it's that simple” then you backed the winning horse.

Almost the entire movie takes place in that massive club, and after a while, Vincent gets a real feel for the place. In one of my favorite ongoing plotlines, he becomes kind of weirdly friendly with the kitchen workers, even though he never says much of anything to them that isn't yelling or cursing. But there's a bond that forms when you corner a man and demand in Franglais that he help you fill up a couple dozen plastic bags with flour to pass it off as temporarily missing cocaine. I like to think all the kitchen staff looked at Vincent as he had them do that and went, “Wow, that guy's fucking awesome.” And so when he stops back in they're almost like, “Hey, it's that awesome guy again.”

I wouldn't dream of revealing how all this shakes out. The hour-forty one spends with Sleepless Night is a mesmerizing, dream-like time. Director Frederic Jardin is the truth. The action is absolutely top echelon, with copious, brutal, relatively naturalistic ownage abound. The acting's great. The camerawork is killer. It's cut almost perfectly. Actually, there's only one thing wrong with the movie, and it's not anything cinematic. There's one scene where an ostensible good guy goes a little far in getting information out of a woman who's a lot smaller than him, and not one of the bad guys. Granted, the guy in question was under a bit of stress, and to the best of his knowledge the woman in question was working against him, but there was a moment there where it was a little uncomfortable. No “yeah, but” with that either, it's a definite debit.

That said, it's just about the movie's only one. Sleepless Night's highs rank with the best action cinema's seen. Almost the entire picture is a high. Oh man oh man this fucking movie is good. It's an absolute must-see for anyone who likes cop movies, gangster movies, action movies, and who likes it when all the above keep it fucking French. I know it's not just me, y'all.

AT TRIBECA: UNIT 7

Grupo Siete: Sí, somos badasses. 

Spain's always been pretty hip. They were Islamic less than a century after the Prophet (before everyone else was into it, etc etc), you gotta love any country capable of winning the World Cup AND a gold medal in Olympic basketball—which could totally happen if Dwight Howard's back is actually injured; for bigs, Spain has the Gasol brothers and Serge Ibaka, the latter of whom represents a truly awesome blatant bit of underhandedness, as Mr. Ibaka is from the Congo, and the only reason he plays for Spain internationally is because fuck you, that's why—and there's Ibiza, Gaudi in Barcelona, Elena Anaya, Penelope Cruz. Basically what I'm saying is, Spain's really going out of its way to ingratiate itself to me. That opening shot in Sexy Beast with Ray Winstone just fucking basking is like the whole country is like “Hey, minus the accent, acting talent, and ability to not shit yourself when Ian McShane is pissed at you, THIS COULD BE YOU, BOWES!” The latest in Spain's outreach campaign is director Alberto Rodriguez's cop drama Unit 7 (original title: Grupo 7). They have Elena Anaya, basketball, and ownage? I may have to emigrate.

Unit 7 tells the story of a special police detail, assigned to eliminate (or eliminate the appearance of) the drug trade in Sevilla in preparation for the 1992 Expo. They've got four years. Over the course of those years, the unit's ruthless pursuit of its goal causes them to run afoul of Internal Affairs, the media, their significant others, and, of course, the dealers. It's a pretty standard cop movie scenario, because there are only so many cop movie scenarios to choose from, but like the best cop movies, it uses its policier aspects as a template, into which it fills in its real concerns. In this case, that's the observation that institutional power values appearances over reality, and that in the pursuit of those squeaky-clean appearances, the cops are even more in danger of losing their souls than their lives.

Inescapably, any urban cop story (especially one with parallels this direct) is going to be compared to The Wire, though Unit 7's cynicism about institutions bleeds down to color the foot soldiers as well. Grupo Siete don't blink at stealing heroin to suborn junkies into snitching, or beating the living fuck out of unarmed suspects to make a point, or straight going rogue and lighting recalcitrant dealers up like Nochevieja. On the other hand, though Grupo Siete pulls some pretty skeevy shit in the interests of eliminating Sevilla's drug problem, they're not bad guys; it's a little hard to root for them at times, but ultimately one gets the sense that their circumstances bear a lot of the responsibility for their bad deeds.

The two main cops in the unit, the young, ambitious Angel (Mario Casas) and the hardened, volatile veteran Rafael (Antonio de la Torre) end up gradually turning into one another: Angel starts out the naïve young kid with the pretty wife and kid and ends up becoming consumed by an ends-justify-the-means attitude toward his job and ambition. Rafael, on the other hand, is mean as a fuckin snake at the outset but finds some degree of serenity in an unconventional and unexpected relationship. Both actors are goddamn outstanding at conveying all this, and the story does a beautifully economical job of doling out exposition, doing a better job telling a story through what it omits than most movies do leaving everything in.

So the acting and narrative parts are all excellent, but ho boy the ownage sequences are fuckin outta sight. As ownage goes it's naturalistically derived, so you don't get the weaponized refrigerators of The Raid: Redemption, the sliding down the bannister with a toothpick in your mouth two-gun-shooting dozens of bad guys of Hard Boiled, or Albert Finney's fuckin Hanukah tommy gun in Miller's Crossing that kept continuously firing for eight days and nights. But those movies all exist, so you can watch them if you want to see that kind of thing. When people get owned in Unit 7, it's pretty much like someone getting owned in real life, except boosted by a factor of 1.2 or so because the sound design provides a subtle (and, frankly, necessary) heightening so that there's no mistake about the fact that whoever's getting owned is getting fucking owned, but it doesn't strain credibility.

When Unit 7 ends, it kind of feels like you just put down a James Ellroy novel. It's not exactly a happy feeling, but it's a feeling of having been in the presence of something really fucking well done. And, you know, the occasionally disturbing violence (there's one scene in particular just over halfway through about which dog lovers should be cautioned) and the overwhelming cynicism that comes invariably from spending too long pondering the realities of institutional law enforcement. Though, it should be said, a movie as well-done as Unit 7 carries with that slightly melancholy feeling an undercurrent of exhilaration, of having come through an adventure alive.

A well-done character study has its own reward, as is a well-done ownage picture, but both at the same time is occasion to take notice. Unit 7 is being distributed by Warner Bros, so keep an eye out either in the trades or my Twitter, whichever you prefer, cuz the second I hear about when the rest of y'all can check this out, I'm going to be urging anyone who likes cop movies and/or ownage to go see this joint. It's really fuckin good, people.

AT TRIBECA: EDDIE, THE SLEEPWALKING CANNIBAL

Dylan Smith as the title character

Taste in comedy is one of the most subjective things there is, right up there with music and the way one takes one's eggs (Douglas Adams was right, everybody in the fucking universe takes their eggs differently, it's uncanny). Some people like goofy comedy, some like fart jokes, some repartee, some odd people even find bald men smashing watermelons with hammers funny. Me? I like all the aforementioned except the watermelon business, even though I'll concede it a point or two on pure strangeness. But one particular thing I love is really, really dark deadpan shit deriving from and intertwined with graphic violence. Another particular thing I love is lots and lots of levels and meta out the fuckin wazoo. A third, truly special thing I find hilarious, are titles that are both elaborately on-the-nose and insane. That last is a bit of a stretch intended as a segue into the glorious, sublime fact that there is a movie that exists in the world that people can go see called Eddie, The Sleepwalking Cannibal.

The title was what initially intrigued me. Then I saw this enthusiastic recommendation. And I thought, hey, what the fuck. What's the worst that can happen? Even if it sucks it'll be over in an hour twenty. So I decided to give it a whirl. And oh boy oh boy lemme tell ya. This picture's fucking great. It's funny, it's dark, it's fucking fucked the fuck up (in the best sense of that exalted designation), and it's kind of a brutal “stop frontin, you know this is pretty much the way it is” critique of the “tortured artist” mythos that hits the center of the bulls-eye.

Our protagonist is a Danish painter named Lars Olafssen who, in the midst of a creative dry spell, takes a teaching gig way out in the middle of goddamn nowhere in rural Canada. On the way out there, he hits a deer with his car, a situation he deals with in a way that is . . . well . . . kind of strange. His fellow art school teachers welcome him with varying degrees of warmth, and almost immediately Lars is warned about a student named Eddie, a fairly innocuous looking dude (apart from being a mute) whom they let sit in provided he doesn't disturb anyone. Lars hits it off with Eddie, who comes to live with Lars in his house.

In fairly short order, Lars comes to discover that Eddie has a nocturnal routine you can probably guess from looking at the title of the movie: left unchecked, Eddie walks in his sleep and eats people. Lars is a little nonplussed (I mean, dude, somnambu-cannibalism is some ya-don't-see-that-every-day shit if ever there was such a thing) but he soon finds that Eddie's wanderings and snacking is inspiring him to paint for the first time in ten years. And because he wants to keep painting, Eddie has to keep eating people.

And yeah, all this insanity is really fuckin funny. Thure Lindhart is equally adept at playing Lars as endearingly alien, weirdly creepy, and someone who is his art, in a terrific lead performance. Dylan Smith has an even steeper difficulty curve as Eddie, not overdoing the simpleton aspect of his waking repose or the mania of his tormented, ravenous sleep, and making us care about Eddie even when he's gnawing on someone's neck before they're dead. Stephen McHattie shows up in a smallish role as the craven representation of art as commerce and, as the devil always does, has all the best lines. (Ed. Note: he doesn't play the literal devil, he's just a guy. Gotta clarify with a picture this strange.)

Eddie, The Sleepwalking Cannibal works as a horror comedy even if it isn't exactly that thing, primarily because its setting, atmosphere and tone are so utterly fucking weird. The violence is kind of matter of fact, and only one person seems to really give a shit that Eddie's running around eating people. Everyone else is far more concerned with Lars and his art: no atrocity so great that it cannot be swept under the rug in the interests of A Great Man engaged in the process of making Great Art. The movie makes something of a point of never showing the audience any of Lars' paintings that everyone oohs and ahhs over, nor the sculpture his “love interest” shows him. The concern here is more with the artist and the way people enable artistic turpitude. The picture's conclusion ties that point up nicely, in both form and content; if it's a smidge too neat, that's a minor quibble.

The important point is, holy shit this movie's good. If you've been waiting for a movie about a Danish painter in rural Canada whose roommate eats people—and I know you have—you're going to want to check this one out, and keep an eye on writer-director Boris Rodriguez, because this cat knows how to make movies.

AT TRIBECA: ALL IN

An entrant in the World Narrative Competition at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, All In (original title: La Suerte En Tus Manos, literally, “the luck in your hands”) is a romantic comedy from Argentinian director Daniel Burman. It's not a bad one either, even if it's a little wonky structurally and features my least favorite trope in the history of cinema—the rom-com character who lies to impress his/her romantic partner. Those two irritants aside, the picture's quite charming and engenders the generosity to overlook the problematic aspects.

The male lead, Uriel (Oscar-winning songwriter Jorge Drexler, in his acting debut, which is amazing because he's fucking great in this) is in a fairly decent place in his life: he's making tons of cash playing poker and doing some kind of shady though technically legal business (I couldn't quite make out what it was with the rapid Spanish and occasionally unreliable subtitles; the vague shadiness did kind of seem on purpose, though). He's got a couple adorable kids. And since his wife left him he's been getting laid so often he's considering getting a vasectomy.

The female lead, Gloria (Valeria Bertuccelli), is back in Argentina after having been abroad, and is dating some wanky, pretentious dude with a goatee, who keeps being wanky and pretentious when she's trying to mourn her just-deceased father. Gloria's mom (long divorced from pops) is awesome: she has a radio show where she holds forth in just about the tweediest way imaginable about literature—for real, NPR looks like fuckin Opie and Anthony compared to Gloria's mom—though off the air she's fairly normal for someone prone to making literary references every five minutes.

Being the kind of movie this is, Uriel and Gloria are bound to get together at some point. The fact that they used to “date” (or fuck constantly in motels) adds a nice wrinkle, as it means their meet-cute is actually kind of plausible. Symbolically it's pretty funny too, because Uriel sees her and goes to make his move at the exact moment Gloria's telling the wanky pretentious goatee dude to hit the bricks.

So they start to date, and some intermittent hilarity ensues. Everything was going fine until Uriel, for no apparent reason whatsoever other than to inject some artificial drama into the whole thing, lies to Gloria about what he does for a living. There's no reason whatsoever for him to do so, and it's really fucking annoying for about twenty-five minutes until, in a nice twist, fate starts ironically lending some truth to the lie, part of what makes the ending so satisfying.

Part of what makes All In fun is in trying to figure out whether, since the movie is kind of torn about whether it's being a serious meditation on relationships and romance between adults and being an industry-standard Hollywood rom-com, it'll end the way the latter always does, or whether it'll throw a foreign art-film curveball. So, I won't spoil that surprise. It should be noted that the story does have time for the following:

--Facebook stalking
--critiquing the gender binary
--Kabba'listic extrapolations of the concepts of luck, lying, and fate
--high-stakes poker
--an all-rabbi metal band
--a more laid-back, less internecine cocaine civil war Argentine version of Fleetwood Mac

I mean, come on. That's a movie with its heart in the right place. Only problem is, its head is a little out to lunch at times. There are a few too many scenes where people tell each other things that we've just seen happen (frequently two scenes in a row with the same exposition), which is part of what makes the movie, which runs an hour and fifty-three minutes, feel about three hours long. The pace is really, really slow, especially in the first act; it picks up a bit after Uriel and Gloria meet but it's still entirely too much of a slog. It's a few judicious edits away from being fixed, though, so if when this gets acquired for U.S. distribution and you hear it's now an hour thirty-five, disregard this stuff about the pacing and overlength.

Even now it's not that much of a problem. Jorge Drexler and Valeria Bertucelli are terrific together, a couple one genuinely wants to see work it out. And, as mentioned above, there's just enough legitimately apeshit atmosphere that even as you're checking the time and going “Jesus Christ, there's still an hour left?” you're still like, “I wish this wasn't this slow, because fuck if I haven't kind of fallen for this movie.” That is, presuming you talk like that.

So, yeah. Pretty fun little movie, all things considered. Keep an eye out to see if this gets picked up, or check it out at the Tribeca Film Festival, if you can.