Light Sleeper
He Was A Good Man In A Deadly Business. She Was His Only Way Out.
John LeTour (Willem Dafoe) is a good man in a bad business, working for Ann (Susan Sarandon) on the wrong side of the law. When Ann decides to close up shop, LeTour has to go straight and come up with a future. But time is running out on him as he must dodge the cops, confront a killer, and find
his heart before he can leave his past behind.
Member Reviews
World's on fire - rdees
This tense, moody, rather quiet thriller from Paul Shrader is an excellent film, and a very worthy sibling to the much earlier American Gigolo, with which it shares a certain nocturnal presence, its slow pacing, and a growing threat of impending tragedy. It also continues Shrader’s investigations of the ‘lone outsider’ – in this case a drug dealer – but without falling into the traps of the all-too familiar clichés. The charm in this film is from the quiet way in which the lead actors – in particular Willem Dafoe – drift through the scenes with a kind of tense serenity. Dafoe’s John LeTour is an immensely compelling lead: he deals, he’s deeply involved in and yet intellectually distant from what he does. He writes in notebooks which, once complete, he lets gracefully fall into the trashbin. Disposable memories, reflections, a life fit only for the trash. Without giving anything away, the plot moves on, bad things do happen, and the final scene offers the chance of a future, of looking forward. Like American Gigolo, that finale comes straight out of Bresson’s Pickpocket, and in spite of the heavy debt it owes to that much earlier film, Shrader pulls it off remarkably well. The DVD itself loses points for its poor quality and inexcusable full-screen presentation (the original is 1:85:1).
Member Reviews
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World's on fire - rdees
This tense, moody, rather quiet thriller from Paul Shrader is an excellent film, and a very worthy sibling to the much earlier American Gigolo, with which it shares a certain nocturnal presence, its slow pacing, and a growing threat of impending tragedy. It ...