Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic “Sleeping Dogs,” starring Russell Crowe as a retired cop with Alzheimer’s disease, is a half-rusted scrap heap of a detective mystery.
It’s patchy, it’s badly lit, it’s glum, it’s overloaded with suspects, and it’s almost proud of its contrivances. Yet in its logy, booby-trapped way, it keeps you watching.
Crowe, with a white beard and shaved head that make him look like Santa Claus as a melancholy biker, plays Roy Freeman, who was forced to turn in his badge after he caused a drunk-driving accident.
Now, he’s in the thick of serious midstage dementia; he has written labels on masking tape and plastered them around his apartment, so that he’ll be reminded of everything from his own name to where the hot water is.
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