Mila is forced to endure a series of psychological trials, which begin after she’s presented with a bucket full of offal. Still, there are some moments where “Sleepless Beauty” is, in its own single-minded way, effectively gross. The rest of the Khaleevs’ dismal scenario practically writes itself. And while all this is going on: Mila’s father ( Sergey Topkov) tries to find and rescue her. Gagarin’s character never speaks aloud, because he only administers the rules and instructions that Indik lays out in an authoritarian pout. Her mental collapse is precipitated by a masked thug, played by Evgeniy Gagarin (I know, try not to laugh), who is always shown wearing a black balaclava with a zipper around its mouth. Most of their movie is as narratively tidy as it is thematically undeveloped and visually flat: closed-circuit security cameras provide basic coverage of Mila’s punishing daily routine, but the really grisly stuff is always filmed relatively close-up, from inside Mila’s cell. “Sleepless Beauty” is at least effectively disturbing, though probably not for any reasons that director Pavel Khaleev or screenwriter Aleksandra Khaleeva planned. “Sleepless Beauty” isvery much what it looks like: a pat, nihilistic confirmation that the “dark web” is real, and that torture is still an effective all-purpose weapon, if your goal is to destroy anybody, at any time, and for any reason. We never really know why, or how it works, but are rather forced to join Mila as she inevitably slips into a deranged and highly suggestible headspace. In this context, torture is just a means of achieving some oblique ends. If you can suspend your belief and just sit back and enjoy the ride, I think you will find you'll very much enjoy this film.The point of this exercise is as plain as it is ugly: Mila is a test subject for “Recreation,” a group whose shadowy members are shown to be experimenting, in an establishing scene, a new method of mind control, one where abductees are mentally demolished to the point where they’re so disoriented that they’re capable of hurting anybody that Recreation’s organizers put in their path. If you ever find yourself bored watching this movie then I would suggest action movies are certainly not for you. It never lost my interest once and it knew its limitations. As just a straight up entertainment package I really enjoyed 'Sleepless'. The characters were actually very well written almost entirely across the board. I also enjoyed the fact that you could never be entirely sure about whether or not a character was loyal or not. It was like a fun house by the end with all the nooks and crannies being explored and visited by different characters. I loved the fact that almost the entire movie takes place in one setting. The action begins almost immediately and basically never lets up. There's rarely a dull moment in 'Sleepless'. You can notice these things, but I think you are being very tough if you are judging your entire opinion on them. Admittedly throughout the film I kept thinking to myself those kinds of things, like this guy got stabbed a long time ago and has had about 10 fights since and still seems to have superhuman strength. I have a feeling that is a lot of what is going on with 'Sleepless' and people's opinions of it. So when people come out of a movie and say they hated it because "x" would never happen or "y" didn't make sense or when a certain character did something they should have done something else, I don't really buy that as a reason to ever hate a movie. Thus it would be incredibly difficult to make an entertaining movie without having quite a few illogical things happen. The reasons that the things we see in movies rarely happen in real life is because logic generally takes over and prevents these things from actually happening. Here's the thing - if movies never suspended belief, they would be both pointless and incredibly dull.
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