Russell Crowe Struggles To Forget a Derivative Mystery in Sleeping Dogs

An estimated six to seven million people suffer from Alzheimer’s in the U.S. alone, and if movies are to be believed, a substantial portion of them are further burdened with the responsibility of solving a murder mystery or closing out their contract-killing career. Just a week after Michael Keaton struggled to set his affairs in order in the somber hitman drama Knox Goes Away, Russell Crowe is drawn into a similar world of murder and deception in Sleeping Dogs, playing dementia-afflicted ex-cop Roy Freeman, who re-opens an old murder case he once considered settled but no longer fully recalls.

Roy’s home is covered with sticky notes containing various reminders, instructions and other information, some of it potentially redundant: Why would frozen food with illustrations and cooking instructions printed on its box also need a sticky note repeating those instructions? If Roy is so far gone that he can’t read pre-existing instructions, should he be working a microwave in the first place? The most likely explanation is that Roy suffers from the rare Memento strain of Alzheimer’s, which is unfortunate for him but a real boon when it comes to selling an unremarkable mystery thriller with borrowed imagery.

That may sound insensitive, but movies like Sleeping Dogs do not exactly inspire sensitivity through their gimmick-at-will treatment of a tragic ailment. In the midst of an experimental treatment designed to improve his condition, Roy is approached by an advocate for a prisoner he put away for the murder of a college professor (Martin Csokas). He goes along with the conversation despite not remembering much of the case, and turns to his old partner Jimmy (Tommy Flanagan) for help; it may seem like an unlikely task for him to take up, but it beats sitting around his apartment, re-reading his various notes to self as he waits to see whether his brain can heal. Eventually he crosses paths with Laura Baines (Karen Gillan), who – depending on who’s recollecting what – is either a genius researcher manipulated by her former prof, or a femme-fatale manipulator in her own right.

The idea of a detective re-investigating a case with unwillingly fresh eyes has a lot of potential, as Roy attempts to reconstruct others’ memories, which may intersect with his own, and sort through the mistakes he may have made along the way. He’s essentially becoming reacquainted with an old self he may no longer care to know, and Crowe plays this with the kind of gravity that justifies a star’s paycheck – I believe the formal term is Neesoning. It’s easy to believe in the drunken, loyalty-above-law reprobate that the old Roy sounds like, and the foggier, somewhat gentler man who must hold instinctive regrets, even if he can’t remember what they are. Crowe, even with an American accent that sounds vaguely like Dustin Hoffman, gives Roy a quiet dignity.

The rest of Sleeping Dogs, however, falls in that unpleasant netherworld between a heightened, stylized noir – that’s the one that Gillan seems to occupy, with an awkward archness – and a more grounded contemporary drama, ultimately satisfying neither category. Director/co-writer Adam Cooper, who worked on the screenplays for Assassin’s Creed and a Divergent sequel, among others, keeps everything moving at a dispiriting trudge, that deadening combination of grim and preposterous. As a mystery, it’s maddeningly ineffective, where characters who seem immediately sketchy take ages to reveal their petty motives. Sleeping Dogs winds up playing like a low-rent Saw sequel without the elaborate traps or gore. It’s all bad cops and worse twists, turning the fragility of human memory into a cheap trick.

Director: Adam Cooper
Writer: Adam Cooper, Bill Collage
Starring: Russell Crowe, Karen Gillan, Marton Csokas, Tommy Flanagan
Release Date: March 22, 2024

Jesse Hassenger is associate movies editor at Paste. He also writes about movies and other pop-culture stuff for a bunch of outlets including Polygon, Inside Hook, Vulture, and SportsAlcohol.com, where he also has a podcast. Following @rockmarooned on Twitter is a great way to find out about what he’s watching or listening to, and which terrifying flavor of Mountain Dew he has most recently consumed.