Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

I bought this movie solely because of Clive Owen being in it. However, this movie was a swing and a miss, and not even Owen could manage to salvage the pieces of this wreck of a movie.This is essentially a revenge movie, but not a good one, to be bluntly honest.The story is about Will, a former criminal now on the virtuous path to righteousness and a life free of crime. But when his brother is found dead under dire circumstances, Will sheds his newfound life and returns to his former dark past, seeking vengeance upon those whom wronged his brother.The concept idea seems fairly adequate, although generic and something that has been seen numerous times before. However, director Mike Hodges just managed to steer this movie off course and turn it into a very flaccid experience of a movie.The acting was adequate, although the actors and actresses very limited by the script, and it was showing on the screen.And the slow progress of the storyline also really hindered the movie to the point where it was becoming a drag to sit through. And I must admit that I was close to fully giving up on the movie twice, but I managed to stick with it to the very end.Clive Owen couldn't save the movie, nor could Malcolm McDowell.I was bored senseless with "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead", and as such, then this movie scores a meager three out of ten stars.

As an exercise in portraying the low life of London, this film does not offer much that is new and features an array of stock "underworld" characters that, because we have no experience (most of us anyway) of knowing such people, we have to accept that "this is what it must be like". On the other hand it is all very well done and because it is not a documentary but a cinematic entertainment, then that mission has been accomplished pretty well. The production values are good and the direction and editing preserve a dark and menacing mood throughout. The two main standout features of this film that are possibly different from most movies of this genre are (1) the graphic and clinical descriptions of male rape and (2) the surprisingly attractive notion of living a nomadic life in a van, a small space that is currently receiving much media attention here in the UK, being promoted as a desirable and proper thing to do.

There is Nothing Wrong with wanting to make an Anti-Modernist Crime Movie Void of Overused, cue Guy Ritchie, Stylized Violence and Shoot-Em-Up Excess. But You can go too Far in the Other Direction. There are some Scenes in this Neo-Noir from Britain that seems to be there for no other Reason as if to Say, Hey this is Cerebral and not Visceral, so get with it. The Post Autopsy and Psychiatry Stuff is Informative but Ambiguous. It is not that these Things are Unwelcome, but are there to the Exclusion of some other more Important, more Snappy Items for those that may Require a bit more of the Hard-Boiled and a Little Less of the Scientific.The Under Styling of the Underworld is too much In Your Face as it tries so hard to be Not In Your Face. It ends up Lacking Verve, but does have Enough Intrigue to Recommend, although it does seem too Short, Shallow, and Serene. But there is an Attractive Brood going on and its Melancholy in Place of Mania might be just the Antidote some are Seeking in this Age of Overindulgence from Films on just about Every Level.

I had expected better things of Trevor Preston and Mike Hodges and perhaps give them the benefit of the doubt that their original vision was manipulated by the money men. But even so this really is a dreary load of clichéd cods wallop with the plot stolen from Get Carter. The wheels kept coming off the waggon as I watched, but the final one to make the film crash to floor in clichés was when he opened the garage and there was a 1960s Jaguar sitting there. It might have made a half decent 50 minute Sweeney episode in the 1970s but as a movie its a complete waste of money. The British film elite are always complaining about lack of money, well if they stopped giving it to the same old lethargic luvvies to make the same old junk all the time, they might end up with a proper 'industry' in which digestible movies are churned out week after week?.