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Even after giving a 6/10 to Silent Dogs (2024) this is a movie I would recommend to anyone who like suspense and crime investigator theme movies, I went out on a thread and mention how fire the ending is but this does not mean the movie have no flaws.
It's a very slow movie that will keep you around one hour getting inform on the current status of all the characters and not so much about the investigation itself, we got Russell Crowe playing Roy Freeman an ex homicide detective who lost all his memory, dude doesn't even remember what he eat for breakfast, use to drink a lot back in the day and went through a bad car wreck that cause this memory loss plus he suffers Alzheimer. A case from the past hunts him down, a man who confess guilty of a crime is about to get death penalty after 10 years in prison and after having a lot of time to think about it now request to see Roy and talk to him about what really went down because he is innocent.
As you can see Audience decimate the Critics on Rottentomatoes, although this looks fishy to me, quite a few scores with very little commenting, I just don't trust the scores on this websites, on the other hand on IMDB the movie did get a 6/10 and that's more fair to me, this movie is a one time watch because after you discover the murder it loose the amusement, its hard for me to think I would watch a suspense movie more than once.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8542964/
- Platform: AppleTV+
- Release: March 22, 2024
Roy Freeman an ex cop, his life has drastically change after getting an experimental medial treatment for his memory condition, something I don't get is WHY he lives alone when he suffers Alzheimer? there is no wife, no son or daughter not even a nurse at home with him, his situation is wild, got tape all over the house with names and instructions, the guy does not even remember his name or that he left the TV remote on the microwave, so from this point you ask how is he going to solve a case or how does he even go out, he has no tape with instructions when he goes out, this part does not click for me a person who has such bad memory still wonders around trying to solve and old case. Lets say as long as he is on his medication he stays focus and doesn't loose memory that quickly, say he only has problems when waking up and after he gets his engine running he is all good.
He keeps getting this flash backs of his surgery, its all experimental and seem to be a 50/50 shot but its working for him so far, he has to stay on pills every day to regenerate part of his brain. One day he gets this call from Emily who work for an association who revisit cases specially those of men who get death penalty and there is a men called Isaac Samuel who got convicted for the murder of Dr. Joseph Wieder and he ask Emily to get him Roy pay him a visit because at least before he goes down he wants to tell the truth, his side of the story.
Roy meets Emily and start to go through old case files, watch the evidence, pictures of the victim, read the report to latter on down the story find out his signature was not on any of the paper work, there was his partner but not his, obviously he can't remember a thing at this moment but little by little start to remember part of the story.
Roy had a partner, Jimmy Remis played by Tommy Flanagan, to be honest not an actor that I like too much I mostly remember him from Sons of Anarchy and that is it. While Roy interview Issac in prison a scene of how the interrogation went down comes up, Roy was no saint, them both Jimmy and him were two bully, they had Isaac so fucked up and were putting pressure on him to confess, all gas up, beaten, could not even open his eyes and been accuse of murder the guy was in chock and confess but just to make them stop and let him be to ten years latter had the chance to tell he was there the moment Joseph Wieder was murder, never saw the killer but it was not him, so the question remain who killed Joseph? Roy doesn't remember a thing, it was not Issac so may be Jimmy knows?
Roy visits Jimmy who has not seen him a very long time, in fact when Roy got to his place he didn't even recognize Jimmy but Jimmy did recognize Roy even under the coat and the beanie, they start talking about the case and there was a guy they never follow up, named Richard Finn and all of the sudden when Jimmy and Roy decided to look for him to ask him some questions he was found dead, overdose, what a coincidence, Jimmy thought this would be it but Roy did decide to follow up and went to Richard's funeral where he found his brother, who at the moment had a script or book he was working on based on his personal life and romance with a women who had him crazy from day one. I know this is a movie but there are certain coincidences that are just too much may be if Richard's brother would have told Roy come home I got some stuff from Richard that might help but no it happens he had it with him? this are the kind of details why I give it a six.
Moving forward with the characters and not trying to spoil the entire movie, Richad met Laura Baine a very intelligent women who work with Joseph Wieder a professor, they both were working on a project that could alleviate people from bad memories and help them improve their life through psychological techniques. At first everything was great between Laura and Richard until he met Joseph and find out she was probably just having an affair with him? because this has turn into a three way relationship, who knows if Laura was fucking Joseph just to stay on the project but before he was murder he publish his work and she was left out, Laura attempt to sue him. Joseph was a very influential man with lots of connections, power hungry and love to fuck every women he like, he also had a thing to record them and keep it as a souvenir, happen to fuck Roy's wife a bartender who work at a place Joseph use to frequent.
Based on this story we got possible killers, Laura who was left out of the project after she work with Joseph since the beginning and build it from the ground, Richard who was basically bully by Joseph because he was not only fucking her date but also let him offer him a job because Richard father died and he had no money to pay for his studies and at last we got Roy who finds out Joseph fuck his wife but the best part is that current Roy does not remember a thing about the case.
As the movie keeps developing it properly gives you many alternatives, I always look at suspense movies form the perspective that I'm the one trying to solve the mystery meaning Roy is my guy but my guy is broken, so he is constantly at risk of dying or who knows what could happen to him and at the same time he can't get things untangle fast enough because of his memory problem, it makes you feel impotent and you have to deal with it and that's another beauty of the this movie that at certain points in time makes you feel things, makes you react to how Richard was used by Laura, how he was bully by Joseph, how lost Roy was the entire time, in fact its not until the very end that Roy discover who really killed Joseph Wielder, the ending the last five minutes after the music stops is wild, I'm not sure if it was intentional but just before he figures everything out there is a part that makes you think it can't be this easy like they wanted you to feel disappointed and then gives you this big shot of dopamine when its reveal who murder Joseph, the movie ends right there, no future, no consequences just pure shock.
I believe Russell Crowe still got it, I have seen him this year say in two mid tier movies, both one time watch but very entertaining, Sleeping Dogs gets a bit slow but its a suspense movie specially with a man that is basically cripple at the moment with parts of his brain not working at a 100%, over all a movie that I would recommend.
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