Sleep Dealer (2008)

It's great to finally see a sci-fi that does global injustice right. Elysium was pretty good, but it doesn't capture the gritty realism the way Sleep Dealer did.

This drama is effective because it hits close to the reality between US and Mexico. It takes that godawful situation and built a very interesting story intertwined with a technology that could one day exist. The combination of poverty with technology makes for some awesome cyberpunk.

The CG is a bit on the crappy side, but I could overlook it because the movie was story driven. It didn't rely on special effects. The visuals that did work did awesomely. They helped build the tone and didn't function as cheap shortcut.

Say adios to high budget garbage.

Fmovies: I liked the film and think it deserves more than a 6.2 so I gave it a high score to try and bump up it's overall score. It deserves about an 8. A really good film that tries to deal with the idea of a dehumanized black economy working for an ever increasingly fascistic USA. Some interesting idea's, some not so interesting. It definitely has a cyberpunk feel but being from Mexico it was always going to be different.

I am unsure of the budget but the film holds it's own and the sfx budget seems to have been spent wisely. The acting was good with the lead and support actors being enjoyable enough to watch. I also liked the score which was essentially Latin pop/dance.

The ending is a little unrealistic given the portrayed future realism of the rest of the film. A good film that is not the greatest sci-fi ever but deserves higher marks considering the obstacles the production team faced. A low budget, sci-fi drama from Mexico is not something you see everyday so it should be applauded.

In the US we are inured to dealing with corporate service centers with call takers that speak barely understandable English. This form of remote cross border servicing is one of the characteristics of globalization of work made possible by the internet. What this film does is imagine the next logical step: the similar globalization of manual labor. By means of robotics and the WWW, the film depicts a world where robotic drones in the US do all kind of menial and dangerous work while the brains that control the drones sit or stand in a third world country. It's the ultimate dreamworld for the US of A: work without the annoyance of immigrants.

While the near-reality sci-fi concept is clever, the film itself screens as an Hollywood B-movie. The acting and plot development styles will be familiar to the popcorn-eating crowd that populates the local shopping mall multiplex. The special effects are not that impressive (not surprising considering a 2.5 million dollar budget). There is a dated Star Wars bit with planes shooting at each other while flying through a canyon. It's tiresome if you don't dig this kind of infantile action scenes.

On the positive side, the film is peppered with clever manipulation of language, satirical takes on American impressions of foreigners, jabs at the excesses of capitalism, and inspired blending of present and future. The "coyotes" of today have been replaced by "coyoteks" who will, for a fee, pierce your skin with the appropriate hardware plugs (called nodes) that will enable you to directly connect your body to the internet and to vie for a job at a cyber "maquiladora". If you get such a job, you will send some of your salary to poor relatives back home in the countryside. Money transfers have been simplified, but there are so many fees and surcharges (think of your cell phone bill) that one third of the principal is pilfered by corporations and the government.

You can read more about this subject of remote work at the faux website www.cybracero.com (read cyber plus "bracero"). Check it.

On the net, users have gone beyond sharing personal data. Now they upload memories (yes, sucked out of one's brain) to the TruNode central database and sell them to interested readers. While plugged in -- literally -- TruNode will even sense if you are lying. More interesting or juicy memories, more money. It's the hyper-commercialization and surrender of the human soul.

The ultimate target is the privatization of water. Alas a sad development currently in progress. In good Hollywood fashion, a successful attack is gathered against that idea. The dream of revolt is not dead. Cyber poor of the world, rise up!

Sleep Dealer fmovies. This is one of those movies that you watch and slowly "connect" to its reality. Many people disliked that. It was either to slow compared to most of the movies today or too intense an experience to people that don't like the feeling of immersion into something else. However, from what I am sitting, it was a great movie.

First of all, one must take a step back from the usual reviewer practice and take into account that all the actors in the movie are Mexican and so is the writer/director. I don't know what budget the movie had, but it was well done in acting, atmosphere, plot, details and special effects. Winning the Sundance festival (and not being about crazy people) should also count in its favor.

Second of all, I really enjoyed the movie. It has the feel of films like Blade Runner, only it hits really closer to home. Luis Fernando Peña was a real good choice for the main role, even if it wasn't a very challenging one. As in many good movies, the main character was the idea, the plot, and the actors were just slipping into their niche.

Bottom line: this is a sci-fi movie that needs to be seen. Whatever faults it has, they are far surpassed by its qualities. The social message is just as important as the vision of a future where we can have whatever we wish for, only that we wished wrong. See it. It is worth it.

............................................................from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA., CALI, COLOMBIA and ORLANDO, FL

This Mexican surprise is a real "SLEEPER" in every sense of the word! 9*, right up front, no ambivalence about this little gem! Lends a totally unexpected new dimension to the phrase "Hook Me Up"!

Before I begin enumerating the list of great things DEALER has going for it, a word about the title: How many of you know some Spanish? Mine is on a par with my English: "Sleep Dealer". Weird translation! That would be "Traficante de SUENO"(Singular--BTW, can't render an "enyeh" here, sorry!) "Traficante de SUENOS"(Plural) should be "DREAM Dealer". That even sounds a lot better, doesn't it? I'm clueless as to why the misfire on the title, but that's about DEALER's only misstep!

A Tremendous cinematic power courses through this DEALER's veins! during its 85 minutes of on-screen life! First, it's a genre bender. An interesting fusion of not-too-distant-future Sci-Fi, Suspense, Drama, Political Thriller and Still-Third-World-and-Definitely-NOT-Hollywood Foreign/Mexican!

The storyline delivers some very convincing/ interesting 3rd world perspectives on globalization and exploitation, but devoid of soapbox style preaching. It simply presents events and lets them speak for themselves, in a "You draw your own conclusions" fashion.

One truly surprising element was the AUDIO of DEALER. The quality of the sound and sound mixing was right up there with the very BEST U.S. films. ALL audio elements complimented the film perfectly, adding a very subtle, sophisticated level of highlighting of mood, texture and ambiance enhancement. DEALER also spins language like no other foreign film. Reminiscent of Aldous Huxley's NEW-SPEAK in Brave New World, which influenced A CLOCKWORK ORANGE some 30 plus years later, the dialog is brimming with the likes of COYOTEC; from Coyote, those who organize illegal border-crossings; and LIVE NODE GIRLS, for that ultimate "Hook Me Up" experience! 9*.....ENJOY/DISFRUTELA!!!

Any comments, questions or observations, in English o en Español, are most welcome!

KissEnglishPasto@Yahoo.com

There I said it...BLADERUNNER

Why did i say it?..

because watching this movie reminded me how I felt the first time I saw Ridley Scott's masterpiece.

What gives?..

Well, although the two movies are light years apart in terms of budget and storyline what caught me was that Sleep Dealer creates a 100% believable future with it's inherent beautiful,nasty and grotesque humanity/technology co-existence. Very few sci-fi movies ever get that right, its usually "too shiny". The future looks scary after viewing Sleep Dealer, and all too real. Roy Batty would approve.

Great acting, real looking (non-hollywood-ed) people, a plot ...that develops throughout the movie, even a love story of sorts, and all this with cinematography and music that accents the whole thing just right.

To all involved:

THANK YOU / MUCHISIMOS GRACIAS