With some movies, you don’t care so much about the plot as you care about the ride that it takes you on. The Terminator (1984) was one such classic film; Jason Statham’s manic run in Crank (2006) was another. I’ve just finished seeing Sleepless Night (2011) for the third time and thought it was about time I reviewed it here.
This is a blisteringly paced French crime drama (actually it’s a joint venture between France, Belgium, and Luxembourg) which was originally titled Nuit Blanc. It starts out like a shot out of a cannon and never loses its momentum or its sense of dread.
The plot? There is the barest outline of a plot, but who really cares? Two corrupt cops (the dubious “good guys”) rob a few drug dealers of a major cocaine shipment in Paris. But things go wrong. They go very wrong. The hold-up turns into a bullet festival, and deaths result. Worse still, one of the cops, named Vincent (Tomer Sisley), is recognized.
Vincent’s partner in crime, another cop named Manu (Laurent Stocker), isn’t happy either. We get the sense that he will not hold up under the strain of these developments, and that it’s only a matter of time before he rats someone out. The discovery of the robbery has now made them hunted by both cops and drug dealers.
Word gets back to the gangster owner of the cocaine shipment, a greasy Corsican nightclub owner named Jose (Serge Riaboukine). He’s not happy about this, not at all. So he kidnaps Vincent’s young son Thomas (Samy Seghir) and calls up Vincent for a little chat. The deal is this: bring me back my drugs, and I’ll let your son go.
And thus the stage is set for one of the most exhilarating rides in recent movie history. Vincent agrees to meet the Corsican at his nightclub lair, which is called Le Tarmac. And it seems like things should be so simple. Vincent turns over the drugs, and he gets his son back.
Nightclub on steroids: the set of Le Tarmac
But screenwriters need grist for their plot mills, and what seems simple never really is. There is a subplot where a couple of cops from internal affairs, Lancombe (Julien Boisellier) and Vignali (Lizzie Brochere), are following Vincent. Delphine sees Vincent stash the drugs in a restroom, and things begin to unravel for Vincent from there.
Most of the film’s two hours are spent in chases, fights, and double-crosses inside Le Tarmac. Never did a nightclub feel simultaneously so claustrophobic and yet labyrinthine at the same time. Director Frederic Jardin ingeniously constructed Le Tarmac just for this film, and his attention to detail shows in every frame of the shaky hand-held footage. By depriving us of our sense of spatial relationships, we are kept permanently on edge, uncertain of who is lurking around the next corner or within the crowd.
It is 41-year-old Tomer Sisley who really carries the show. His performance is nothing short of incredible. I knew nothing about this actor, but according to his Wikipedia page, he was born and raised in Berlin but has worked as a stand-up comedian in France. From watching this film, this is about the last thing you would expect from this actor in real life.
He obviously has some martial arts training, and he leaps, jumps, lurches, stumbles, and sprints around the club, clutching his wounded abdomen, while at the same engaging in some of the most intense fight scenes I can recall in recent years. The kitchen fight scene between him and Lancombe is a masterpiece of choreography.
He has a lean, rawboned Middle Eastern look about him that is able to switch from ruthlessness to sentimentality at the drop of a hat.
Vincent (Tomer Sisley) doesn’t like being tailed by Internal Affairs
Every time you think you have things figured out, a new curveball is thrown at you. We think Vincent is corrupt. Is he? Or is he working undercover? Lancombe is a good cop who’s chasing bad guys…or is he something more sinister?
There are even irreverent bits of humor here. In one montage, Vincent drafts illegal alien kitchen workers to help him prepare a batch of phony cocaine made from Ziploc bags of flour. In another, Vincent grabs a stunned nightclub girl and whisks her around on his arm for a few minutes of screen time as she gradually becomes attracted to him.
The last ten minutes of the film are incredible. We leave the nightclub and take to the highway on a high-speed car ride that has some brilliant action scenes and plot resolutions. All in all, this is an expertly done action film, and well worth your time.
I was disappointed to hear recently that Sleepless Night has been remade for American audiences. Don’t even waste your time. See the original instead, in French with English subtitles if needed.
Read More: The Multicultural Narrative Is Collapsing Before Our Eyes
THE LAST PARAGRAPH IS 100%. WE’RE – ALMOST ALL OF US INCLUDING ME – TOO LAZY AND NARROW MINDED TO WATCH FOREIGN FILMS, AND SOMETIMES THEY ARE FAR BETTER THAN WHAT HOLLYWOOD TURNS OUT.
Speak for yourself, I watch foreign films on a fairly regular basis (not that I have the irrational hate for all things made in America that some people on the manosphere have)
where are you from?
New Jersey
I watch a lot of foreign movies. Korean movies are really good, Spanish ones are quite good, really you just have to give it a shot. I’m from Dallas, so it’s not like I’m Korean or something. I just like a good film and foreign movies can be very entertaining.
7 Samurai is great fun to watch.
Kurosawa is great.
I get giddy like the “two Bobs” talkin’ Michael Bolton when I hear Kurosawa’s name. Heh, for my money, it doesn’t get any better than when he directs “7 Samurai,” “Ran,” or “The Lower Depths,”… I celebrate his entire catalog. So tell me, what’s your favorite?… I KNOW! It’s just so hard to choose. I’m the same way.
Dodes’ka-den left an impression on me. Really put the lens on what a decayed society could look like.
Kurosawa’s Dreams is a pretty unique film. The director had enough clout that he could just present interpretations of his dreams on film.
It’s impossible to pick a favourite… Kurosawa is like Kubrick but from the other side of the world 🙂
He’s probably one of those danged furreners!
13 Assassins. Better.
12 Monkeys. Brad Pitt.
Nah I’m joking… 13 Assasins rules.
Seconded. I watch more foreign films than domestically produced films and have been for years, unless it’s sci-fi or indie.
Freakin’ aye. Foreign films rock.
I dont watch hollywood anymore at all. Last one was Avatar, and as expected, it sucked. There’s too much hidden propaganda (mostly about girlpower) .
Always watch the original from a foreign country.
Oldboy (Oldeuboi) is another example of a good foreign film remade for an American audience. I’ve seen both and the original from 2003 is much better. I’ll gladly watch and read subtitles over the bullshit messages that Hollywood pushes out, today, in films.
I watched that movie not knowing what it was, and yes it was harrowing, but amazing. And then a few months later I saw a remake was coming out that had Josh Brolin and I was like who is the fucking genius that decided to make this idiotic movie? Couldn’t believe that they just shit out a remake of tht movie with Josh fucking Brolin.
Old Boy was awesome.
disturbingly awesome.
Yeah, I noticed hat with several films. “El mariachi”, “open your eyes” became vanilla sky etc.
Avatar was one of the worst piece of shit movies to ever have been laid down on film. I lost faith in my fellow man when I heard so many people rave “It’s the best movie I’ve ever seen”. Women, I could understand, it’s got pretty colors and all that stuff. But men who said that, I just wondered, what the fuck else are you watching that this was the best movie you’ve seen? Perhaps there are more men out there who watch nothing but the latest Smurf movie on endless loop. Then I could see Avatar being perhaps tied for the best movie you’ve ever seen (tied, of course, with the Smurf movie).
I think Smurf movies are way better.
I’ll watch them to help me fall asleep sometimes. But you know who did it and how’s it’s going to end in the first half hour. I studied writing and that stuff in college, and Hollywood uses this universal format where everything is the same. A script won’t get read unless it has all the boxes checked and the plot is the same.
STOP YELLING!!!!
Actually, once you start watching you quickly forget they are “foreign”. And IMO they do tend to be better than Hollywoooooood!
Just watched the wonderful restoration of Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy films this weekend. But, I will agree with your assessment of the American film audiences….and yes, foreign films are often superior to the swill produced by the Hollywood studios.
I’ve never seen this but i’ll be sure to check it out.
On a related note, if any of you want to check out the rare pro masculine anti feminist movie, go check out “Sanctum.”
The story center around a strong Alpha type Father who tries to teach his wimp son the need for strength and ethics.
The few females in the movie aren’t there just for added effect, they add to the story and more importantly, they demonstrate how utterly incompetent females are under high stress situations 😀
I give it five neo masculine thumbs up!
There should be more movie reviews on this site. There may be some red pill/alpha male/neo masculinity movies we’ve missed or never heard of.
I’ve done a few here and there, and will try to do more. Thanks for the suggestion.
Yea it’s a great idea. Most of the guys here are fairly cultured Im sure, and the foreign film vein is interesting.
I was watching Lost Boys the other day and noticed some great anti-feminist undertones.
if you love action packed foreign movies, watch The Raid: Redemption. It’s an Indonesian film about a SWAT team who’s mission to grab a crime lord goes wrong, and have to fight their way out of his territory. it was an unbelievably entertaining, balls to the wall movie, and my only complaint was that it was not 3 hours long.
District B13 is another really good French action movie starring David Belle, one of the founders of Parkour.
You should check out the Man From Nowhere if you like the Raid its a South Korean movie. It starts off slow but then it builds up to one of the best knife/gun fighting scenes I have ever seen.
I sure I would love it. it sounds familiar, is Donnie Yen in it?
I definitely prefer the first Raid over the second, it was more claustrophobic and moved at a faster pace. B13 is a visual feast and good socio-political commentary. I have yet yo see the sequel, I even think it’s called B14.
Yeah, I have yet to see the sequels.
Interestingly the Raid is supposedly being remade in America for some reason and District B13 already has (as Brick Mansions, one of Paul Walker’s last movies). Both baffle me. They exist entirely to showcase a martial art (pencak silat and parkor, respectively) performed by a living master of the field. If you strip out the martial arts, what’s left?
Indeed, they do showcase those arts, but I don’t think it is fair to criticize them for their simplicity. Not every movie needs world class acting, or a convoluted plot to be an excellent film. It simply needs to be well executed. If a movie doesn’t pretend to be anything but a balls to the wall action film, and is masterfully made with that purpose in mind, then in my book it is a great movie.
Who’s criticizing? Those are two of my favorite movies. I’m asking why remake them without the only element that gives them value? It’s very similar to the many sequels to Jim Carey movies without Jim Carey. Did someone look at Ace Ventura and think “Clearly, this star vehicle would work without the star.”
Ahh, I totally misunderstood you. A thousand pardons.
All is forgiven. Let us spread the word of awesome masculine movies from distant lands!
ok I got another one for ya’ll : ‘A Prophet’ 2009 English subtitles ~ [A Prophet (French: Un prophète) is a 2009 French prison drama directed by Jacques Audiard from a screenplay he co-wrote with Thomas Bidegain, Abdel Raouf Dafri and Nicolas Peufaillit. The film stars Tahar Rahim in the title role as an imprisoned petty criminal of Algerian origins who rises in the inmate hierarchy, as he initiates himself into the Corsican and then Muslim subcultures.] One of the best truly masculine movies I’ve ever seen.
I too hate all the propaganda ‘gurrrrl-power’ or ‘female violence is funny’ or ‘save the damsel in distress’ even if she’s your ex wife who divorce raped you… BS being pumped out by the MSM! ya – risking his life to save his divorce raping ex wife… yeah right – Hit fast forward and the feminist crap just kept on getting deeper and deeper… I made the mistake of watching San Andreas where ‘The Rock’ saved his ex-wife [let her get crushed by falling buildings and drown – serves her right]! Anyway – See ‘A Prophet’ – you won’t regret it.
I saw this a few years back, took me a while to remember seeing it, but yes it’s pretty entertaining for sure.
Another good one is The Horseman. Australian movie from 2008. Brutal, straightforward, testosterone-fueled revenge film. It’s absolutely relentless.
Being someone who watches foreign films fairly often, this is something I will definitely check out. Recently I watched “The Admiral: Rising Currents” which is a great Korean film about legendary Korean Admiral Yi Sun Shin who bravely fought off the Japanese invasion of Korea back the the 16th century. If you haven’t seen it already check it out, you will not be disappointed and even though the battle scenes aren’t historically accurate it is worth watching.
The American version will have a Femme Fatale who gets whatever she wants but takes no shit from any man. Her sidekick is a goofy incompetent man.
The plot line will reinforce the fact that she is too hot for everyone except the supreme alpha male.
the two supreme alpha males, both of whom give in and agree to share her at the end of the movie when she takes them both by the arm and castigates them for actually daring to have testosterone.
Found a rip of it online.
https://www.solarmovie.is/watch-sleepless-night-2011.html
This sounds way better than the comic book movies Hollywood will never stop making.
You mean the latest “Oh look, ANOTHER villain wants to level New York City! Just swap out his face with the previous one and stop him, quick!” movie? Yeah, those are starting to feel more and more samey and redundant with each passing one. Five years ago I was all about them but now they pretty much tapped the well dry. Funny how women have suddenly jumped on the superhero and “Saying I’m nerdy is cooooool!” bandwagon once everybody else started doing it. Go figure!
great movie!
I’m only afraid that certain people will be disappointed to learn that the lead actor – Tomer Sisley – is Jewish from all sides with Israeli parents. he’s also the first real French stand-up comedian and a man of many other talents (skydiving, martial arts etc.) no Jews in the American remake though.
No Jews?? Are you talking the cast or the crew? I might believe you about the cast, but making a Hollywood film without Jewish crew doesn’t happen. Ever. It’s like trying to block out The Sun with your thumb.
movie crew? doesn’t sound too impressive to me.
He’s a great actor. Love that guy…a real badass. At first I thought for sure he was either Moroccan or Algerian, with his fluent French and Arab face. It’s too bad he’s never been in any US movies, as far as I know.
There have been a few good adaptation of Philip K Dick books in the past few yrs:
A Scanner Darkly
RadioFree Albumuth
The Man in the High Castle(mini series premiering on amazon prime in a few weeks)
Tell No One is a great French cinema production of a Harlan Coben novel. More of a thriller than an action movie but it’s gripping and original (and features a great psychopathic villain with a scary line on torture techniques).
Another great recent movie that oozes masculinity is 2013’s Cold In July. I cannot recommend this fantastic neo-Western film enough (which, ironically, takes place in the 1980s when it was still perfectly okay to be a man in The West). It has several nods to Rolling Thunder, if you’re familiar with that obscure revenge classic starring William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones.
Remade for American audiences how? There was a French thriller about a kidnapping that was remade with Sandra Bullock and it was the exact same film, shot scene per scene, just with American actors in English. No difference otherwise. Still, the French version was lauded for “better acting”.
Just watched it because of this article. The article is not lying. 100% awesomesauce. Watch this movie now. Plus, it’s $2 rental SD on Amazon.
Is it too hard to copy properly the title of the movie in French? Geez man, that’s just a cut and paste away… Nuit BLANCHE… Night is feminine, hence the declination of CHE Aahahaha. Come on don’t be so lazy.
I actually saw a preview for this recently. I’m hoping it’ll come to Redbox.
ALSO WATCH: El secreto de sus ojos (The secret in her eyes), an Argentinian Thriller (2009) with Ricardo Darín
Thank me later for the recommendation¡
IIRC, I saw on IMDB that the American remake is gonna star Jamie Foxx as the main protagonist, Vincent. Oh well, so much for diversity.
Nuit Blanche (“night” in French is feminine, and adjectives in French agree in number and gender with the noun they qualify.).