Review by John Delia
Off the leash, but not in a good way, the film Where Sleeping Dogs Lie gets so convoluted that it leaves the viewer with nothing entertaining. I can be pretty easy on indie films at times, but I found this film predictable, hackneyed and all over the place. I am not sure that the script was not just an adlib from beginning to end, but it sure looked like it.
If you do watch it, here is a description of the film. Jeff (Jesse Janzen) has just got out of prison after serving a 3 year sentence to protect local mob boss Bunny (Atim Udoffia) as a way to pay her a huge gambling debt he owes. You don’t know this right away and it is a bit of a spoiler, but the film uses the information as a twist of sorts. In fact all the flashbacks are withheld information and; if not used as flashback the film the scenes would have made more sense to the final outcome.
Anyway, Jeff overhears a conversation (which is later told in a flashback) that Bob (David J. Espinosa), whose getting a divorce, has a lot of money stashed away in his home where his wife cannot get to it. So, Jeff has an affair with his wife to find out more about the money. All of this is in flash backs while the robbery is taking place at Bob’s home.
More description would not do anyone justice, so I will end it with Jeff getting two friends Barry (Dustin Miller) and Tim (Tommy Koponen) together and they go to Bob’s home to get the money that’s said to be anywhere from a million dollars to a hundred thousand dollars depending on the scene in the film. While at Bob’s house the bungling trio find themselves committing a couple of deadly accidents, make stupid mistakes, several wrong decisions and create a lot of chaos while Bob, his wife and a female friend end up taking the brunt of the caper.
Not much of a film because of the way it gets presented. It made me feel like the writer or the director were twist happy and thought it would be a good ploy. It’s actually a very difficult maneuver that not all directors and the scriptwriters can pull off, and it fails big here. The editor must have been tearing his hair out cutting scenes and rearranging them to try and give an element of shock. But, each surprise is more of an afterthought and it becomes a hidden “twist†but for no gain. The one saving grace is the actors who make their characters entertaining in spite of the dialogue, editing and the bizarre script.
Where Sleeping Dogs Lie has not been rated by the MPAA, but contains violence, language, very brief nudity, smoking and a lot of senselessness.
FINAL ANALYSIS: Watch it only if there is nothing else on VOD. (1 out of 5 Stars)
Additional Film Information:
Cast: Jesse Janzen, Dustin Miller and Tommy Koponen
Directed and written by: Josh Pierson
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 1 hr. 36 min.
Opening Date: July 7, 2020
Distributed by: 1091 Media
Released in: Digital, VOD