Sleepless (2001) ***

Sleepless (Italian: No ho sonno) (2001) was one of a handful of Dario Argento feature films that I still had yet to see. It was definitely the one with the best reputation of his "late period" films (I also have yet to see The Five Days (1973)). Those six remaining 90s and beyond films—Trauma (1993), The Phantom Of The Opera (1998), The Card Player (2004), Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005), and Dracula 3D (2012)—are generally regarded as fair, middling or outright terrible. Someday I'll get to those. Someday.

For his return to the giallo (after the bomb of POTO) in Sleepless, I've seen it mentioned more than once (including by my friend Michael in his review) that Argento put together a greatest hits package of his trademarks. Indeed, the director incorporates callbacks to his most beloved elements—black gloves, brutal murder set pieces, nursery rhymes, children in peril, past trauma, a thriller novel writer (a la Tenebrae (1982)), etc. The biggest boon that the film has going though is Argento having brought the classic Goblin lineup back together to do the score—a hard rocking, pulsing, modern update of their sound. The "Main Title" and the song "Killer On The Train" are incredibly catchy and drive the action in their respective scenes perfectly. 

Sleepless's opening sequence (an extension followed by an extension of the opening, really) features a tense chase on a train that finds Argento once again displaying his Hitchcock influence but with the bloodletting that his fans have come to know and love. After this, when Max von Sydow (always excellent) is introduced, I was surprised at how engaged I was. Unfortunately, not long after this the film becomes a heavily mixed bag.

The young cast (and really the entirety of the cast) can't hold a candle to von Sydow and the poor dubbing doesn't help any (at least we do get von Sydow's signature gravel in English). The plot is incredibly convoluted and lots of choices and reactions make little sense. That isn't isolated to this film—it happens in a lot of gialli and/or Argento films but usually the visuals can help to alleviate that some. Not here—Sleepless's look is totally unremarkable. No bold lighting and not enough elaborate camerawork (though there are no doubt a few scenes that give us some images to savor). The film feels too long as well, with too many talky scenes.

All in all though, Sleepless was better than expected. I'm happy to have added it to my Argento collection. As I mentioned before, the completist in me feels I need to see those remaining six Dario films, but the quality snob in me doesn't want to watch subpar versions of them. None of them are streaming for free on any of the services I have either and I can't justify spending the asking price for the Blu-rays of some of those titles. Oh well. As I said, someday.

You can find my Dario Argento Films Ranked list here.

You can find my Giallo Feature Films Ranked list here.

You can find my Top 20 Directors list here.