I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Paramount Classics | Release Date: June 18, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
56
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 26 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
12
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Mike Hodges' gritty new film noir I'll Sleep When I'm Dead begins in enigma and snakes its way into stark clarity. Read full review
88
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
A near-great British neo-noir, harsh yet hypnotic. Its psychological vortex can suck you in and leave you reeling. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The film is held together by Clive Owen, who spends most of his time on screen hidden beneath matted hair and a scruffy beard but still has more aura than any actor around. Read full review
80
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
The spare and unsparing tone of I'll Sleep When I'm Dead makes it as existential -- and as original -- a whodunit as they come. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Upon closer inspection its story and characters grow more mysterious, ultimately bordering on the unfathomable. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
In order to appreciate I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, you have to be willing to absorb unhurried film noir, and to accept that the film's version of "closure" is a little frustrating. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleCarla Meyer
In I'll Sleep When I'm Dead,' master of stylish criminality Mike Hodges presents a nighttime London of sharp suits, distorted jazz notes and shiny luxury sedans cruising dirty streets. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
The finish, too, is enigmatic, but in the hands of Hodges, with his masterful touch in conveying how deep run the rivers of regret, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead may take its place with "Get Carter" as a classic British gangster film. Read full review
70
TimeRichard Schickel
If you surrender to the film's often inexplicable rhythms, if you let its dark materials reach out and envelop you, it can be a curiously rewarding experience -- a blend of silences and sudden bursts of violence that, despite its highly stylized manner, feels more edgily lifelike and more disturbing than most movies. Read full review
70
The New York TimesDana Stevens
"Croupier," the director's comeback film of 2000, which also starred Mr. Owen, is a riskier, more interesting exercise in English noir than I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, but the new film, whose title comes from a Warren Zevon song, nonetheless serves as a fine stylistic showpiece. Read full review
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead has its problems: As beautifully made as it is, Hodges leaves some crucial portions of the story maddeningly unclear, particularly at the end. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Though there's less to the film than seduces the eye, the allure of those surfaces can be hypnotic.
60
Film ThreatStaff (Not credited)
A consuming and stimulating work and a theoretical thriller, it is a film which could only be created by a remarkably skillful filmmaker. Read full review
60
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
At times, this makes the film easier to appreciate than it is to watch: The story is perfectly clear, but the film's style takes its cues from the characters' oblique emotions in a way designed to freeze viewers out. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Hodges cuts the film like a diamond, but it's just an exercise in cut glass, an impressive surface that only looks tough. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
An atmospheric but sluggish and needlessly confusing British contemporary film noir that may indeed leave some audience members struggling to stay awake. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Director Mike Hodges and screenwriter Trevor Preston's dark revenge tale strips its crime-story cliches of their hopped-up energy and seedy glamour, leaving nothing but sordid sadness. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
This plodding British revenge thriller has less energy than a pint of Bass that has sat out overnight. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
It has great mood and a sense of the toughness of the London underworld, but it never really gets into gear. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
This sad, dark movie moves across the screen like a sleepwalker, aloof and belonging neither to this world or the next. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
In I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, the night grows long while your eyelids grow heavy. Read full review
40
VarietyDerek Elley
Contains interesting ideas, but often those ideas are not fully realized. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
Owen, perhaps for want of any definition to his character, turns in a performance at once so blank and so bloated with lugubrious bombast, one wants to chuck him under the chin and make him giggle. Read full review
40
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
It's dank, moody and sorrowful (all pros for this critic), but also tediously vague, thematically plodding and often eye-rollingly absurd in its grimness. Some may swoon; I yawned a lot. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The result is a revenge thriller that's too taken with its own ambience to actually thrill. Read full review
20
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
Wallows in the same affected retro stylishness as the earlier film (Croupier), suffers from the same lack of narrative focus, and is just as choked with clichés. Read full review
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