Sleeping Dogs (2024) feels more like an exercise in maintaining screenplay logic than a dynamic piece of storytelling.
Former detective Roy Freeman (Russell Crowe) has Alzheimer’s. The routines of his life are catalogued as lengths of tape, notes stuck to every surfaces of his apartment, each a reminder he can no longer trust himself.
Alzheimer’s played a major part in season three of True Detective (2014- ). There it felt integral to the story. Here it feels deployed, introduced so other parts of the plot can make sense. The most obvious example is the experimental treatment for Roy’s Alzheimer’s. Doctors have inserted electrodes into his brain, to both halt his decline and help him regain his memories. Without this contrivance the plot doesn’t work. Roy wouldn’t agree to meet the death row inmate, a man he helped convict for the murder of Dr. Joseph Wieder (Marton Csokas). He certainly wouldn’t consider the man’s protestations of innocence, or agree to reexamine his case, but because of the treatment he does and he can.
As Roy goes back over his files, and starts to question anyone connected to the case, another clumsy plot device gets deployed. He is given a manuscript written by Richard Finn (Harry Greenwood), one-time assistant to the murder victim. As events in the manuscript are recounted, it not only explains the complicated relationship between Finn, Wieder, and Finn’s girlfriend Laura Baines (Karen Gillan), their personal and professional jealousies, it also offers up and points the finger at Baines as a possible killer. Without this map Roy wouldn’t go looking for Baines, realise she changed her name and published part Wieder’s work as her own, nor would he reconnect with Jimmy Remis (Tommy Flanagan), his partner when he was a detective.
The relationships and connections that unfold strain the shreds of credibility, especially when we get to the closing few minutes of the film. I was left wondering why any of them cared enough to take the actions they did? Jimmy’s loyalty to Roy is understandable, but how they both connect to Baines lacks the motivation for what follows. It’s as if the film confuses plot with story, leaving information where emotion should land.
On the plus side Crowe is watchable enough, as are most of the cast, but nothing can make up for the fancies of the screenplay.
