Sleepless Night (Frédéric Jardin, 2011): Belgium

Reviewed by Matilda Frid. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival.

This fast paced action thriller was made and released in Belgium last year. I would describe it as a non-Hollywood version of “Taken”, as the story and themes are very similar. This movie was directed by the french filmmaker Frédéric Jardin. The main character, Vincent, is portrayed by Tomer Sisley. Serge Riaboukine plays the role of the mob boss Marciano. Other actors that starred in Sleepless Night were Julien Boisselier, Joey Starr, Laurent Stocker and Samy Seghir.

The cop Vincent is involved in a drug heist that goes horribly wrong when someone is killed and a witness gets to see a glimpse of his face. He ends up with a big bag with cocaine, belonging to the powerful mob boss Marciano. In order to get the cocaine back, Marciano has Vincents son kidnapped. That’s when this crazy sleepless night begins. Vincent has to go to the nightclub where Marciano works to give him the bag and get his son back. Unfortunately, another cop manages to hide the bag of cocaine from him. Soon he is chased by good cops, bad cops, drug dealers and Marciano himself. He has to find his son and bring him to safety, all while running from his enemies under the strobe light to loud club music in a crowded and noisy nightclub.

Some action movies have a slight tendency to focus too much on the technical violence and neglect the story behind the violence as well as the thrill. This wasn’t the case at all. I really liked that almost the entire movie took place inside a big nightclub. Vincent was constantly running from all of his enemies. On the dancefloor, through the kitchen, in the hallways, the secret rooms or outside the club. The fact that the chase was inside a place where so many people just came to have fun or to work and didn’t know what was going on was a good idea that worked well with the story. I almost felt like I was there, somewhere in the crowd. And even though I mentioned that this was not just about the violence, don’t assume that this is a peaceful crime drama. At times, I felt like it was almost too intense. But since I felt like the violence had a purpose, I’m ok with it. Sometimes the violence got a bit too unrealistic, when people who got severely injured stood up twenty minutes later. I also felt like the strained relationship between the father and son was too cliché and did not contribute to the story. Other than that, I really enjoyed this movie. Some of the scenes got stuck in my head even after I left the salon and I was constantly looking over my shoulders until I was safely at home in my bed. The action and the thrilling story starts right away and I can’t look away for even one second until the credits are rolling. This is simply a fantastic action movie.