The Innocent Sleep

Introduction

 
Alan Terry (Rupert Graves) is a scouse down-and-out, living and drinking on the streets in London.  After his patch is taken over by a mean drunk Scotsman named Mac (what else?), Alan is pointed in the direction of an old abandoned warehouse near Tower Bridge as somewhere to doss down for the night.  Arriving there, Alan tries to make himself comfortable when he hears a bit of a commotion.
 
Peering through slats, he sees a small huddle of men drag a well-dressed but gagged man to a point in front of him.  One of these men appears to be Italian and in charge, and the upshot is that the gagged man is then hung.  Despite no real reason for it, the slats that Alan is peering through suddenly crash to the floor, alerting the killers to his presence.  A quick search reveals nothing, especially when the now panicking Italian decides he wants to skidaddle pronto-like.
 


The next day, the official word is that the unlucky man had hung himself beneath Tower Bridge, something Alan knows isn't true.  He tries to go to the Police but discovers that the man who is apparently heading the investigation was present at the killing, and now he knows what his witness looks like.  Alan has a word with sozzled friend George (Graham Crowden), an old newspaper man who still has one or two contacts within the trade who will still talk to him.
 
A meeting is set up between Alan and Billie (Annabella Sciorra), an American journalist working in London.  Initially sceptical, Billie becomes convinced as bodies start to mount up and information is confirmed via her fellow journalist James (John Hannah). 
 
Alan is determined to do things his own way though…
 

Extras

 
Trailer
 
Making Of - rather poor effort, the focus of this is on the big burn-out scene and the only real thing that sets it out from the crowd is identifying quite clearly some of the major members of the crew.
 

Overall

 
Well, where to start…
 
First off, this is a DVD-R review and so the picture is presumably nowhere near as good as the DVD release should be.  At least I hope this is the case as the picture was pretty dire.  What made it worse though was that Bluebell Films mocked up the DVD-R as if it was actually a DVD.  Tut tut…
 
As to the film itself, I'm not actually sure why anyone thought that this was prime material for a release on this medium, although if you look at some of the material out there I guess there are things much worse.
 
The film is based on the real-life murder of Roberto Calvi in 1982, Calvi was the chairman of the Banco Ambrosario and was known as 'God's Banker' due to his affiliations with the Vatican.  The bank collapsed due to the discovery of previously unknown debts and Calvi fled to the UK before being found hanging under Tower Bridge.  His death was thought to be suicide at first, but various claims have been made suggesting involvement of the Vatican, the Mafia and the illegal Masonic lodge P2.
 


And so the beginning sort of ties up with this before going off on a complete tangent of a homeless witness being chased across London by a combination of gangsters and corrupt policemen.  Michael Gambon plays the aforementioned copper as a rather angry and nasty bloke, but his performance is poor in a poor film.  Graves makes a real hash of the Liverpudlian accent, so much so that you really wonder just why he plays a character from that area in a film set in London, with most local characters attempting broad cockney accents.
 
Ultimately it's a rather flat film that tries to be something that it clearly isn't: good.
 
I'm sure someone will like it though…