Thorne: Sleepyhead (2010)
Thorne Sleepyhead: follows DI Tom Thornes investigation into a mysterious serial killer. His first three victims ended up dead. His fourth was not so fortunate. Alison Willetts is unlucky to be alive. She has survived a stroke, deliberately induced by manipulation of pressure points on the head and neck. She can see, hear and feel, she is aware of everything going on around her, but she is unable to move or communicate. In leaving Alison alive, the police believe the killer's made his first mistake.
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Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
Great Film overall
Excellent adaptation.
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
I watched this entire movie but fell asleep during the last 5 minutes. That wasn't the only time either; I struggled to stay awake the entire movie! Having invested that much time in it, I wanted to see how it ends and who did it. As it is, I don't know how it ends, and what's worse? I don't care. I found this movie boring, confusing, and quite slow. I kept hoping it would hurry up and end, but it kept dragging along. I have no idea how this rates a 6.8? It's a 1 at best. You may be tempted to give it a try. Save yourself a couple hours and pass on this turkey.
DI Tom Thornes (David Morrissey) is haunted by an incident years ago. He investigates victim Alison Willetts who has been left with locked-in syndrome. She was attacked and injected in the back of the neck. She is aware but unable to communicate or move. She is being treated by Dr. Anne Coburn (Natascha McElhone). There has actually been three previous victims. Kevin Tughan (Eddie Marsan) is Thornes' disbelieving boss and pathologist Phil Hendricks (Aidan Gillen) is suspicious.The locked-in syndrome is pretty interesting. I like Alison's interior dialog. It's more compelling than expected. David Morrissey is a great actor. The biggest problem for me is the convenient reveal and connection to Thornes' problem from years ago. It's all too connected and I don't like it. There is no real reason for the connection other than it serves the writing.
"Thorne: Sleepyhead" seems a lot better when you're actually watching it than after you've had a little time to reflect on it. It's still a decent British crime drama, but, a day later, it strikes me as really only deserving of a middling rating. I was especially disappointed by the ending, which was just a variation on an ending that has been done to death in fiction, even though it never actually seems to happen in real life. Even with the holes in the plot, I was impressed by the unusual plot (at least up until the end), which, while certainly grim, connects with a solid emotional punch. If you like British crime productions, this might be worth a shot, but, all things considered, it doesn't rank even close to the best of them.
Forgettable performance by the main characters of a London crime unit in the investigation of two serial killer cases; plots, hats off to the writer Mark Billingham, were complex and wonderful but often mangled in a choppy pace with one too many tired social drama or work place politics. Thorne came across as an insensitive self-centered bully in the first case and a sophomoric know-it-all copper in the second. No wonder it got only 1.5% viewer share per Wikipedia:"Running on a Sunday evening in the prime 2100 slot on satellite against strong terrestrial competition from the popular Julian Fellowes' period drama series Downton Abbey, the first episode of four-part drama Single Father starring David Tennant, and a reshowing of the Dan Brown thriller The Da Vinci Code, the show drew 402,000 viewers and 1.5% audience share, according to preliminary BARB figures."