VoML Postfilm Report: Sleep Dealer (2008)

TOP BILLED ACTORS
Leonor Varela, Jacob Vargas, Luis Fernando Pena

DIRECTOR
Alex Rivera

5 MAJOR THEMES

1. Growth
2. Guilt
3. Repentance
4. Alternate Reality
5. Honor
   

3 POSITIVES

• The idea was great and extremely interesting. Memo (Luis Fernando Pena) lives in a future world where martial law prevails and the government holds a shoot first mentality, more worried with monopolizing, protecting and distributing their resources than they are with the well-being of their citizens. Essentially jobs all over the world have been outsourced to “sleep dealers”, workers in Tijuana (and presumably other localities) warehouses who are connected to machines via nodes implanted on their bodies. The workers clock in for their shifts and work at construction sites in San Diego, drive a cab in London, butcher animals in a Midwestern meat factory, etc… The best of the best, such as Jacob Vargas’ character Rudy, pilot drones who ferret out and destroy suspected insurgents in front of a national audience via live feeds.
  
• At the beginning of the film, Memo’s father asks, “Is our future a thing of the past?” Memo chuckles but it was a poignant question. Memo never saw the world before technological advances led to invasion of privacy, a loss of civil liberties, and the privatization of natural resources, even those necessary for survival. The family once had a future but now that future was gone, life became about surviving.
• Luis Fernando Pena was very good as the conflicted Memo. His obsession with technology and life in the outside world could destroy his family and slowly lead to his demise. Can he find a way to take back their future?

3 NEGATIVES

• It seemed that some of the technology in the film was unbelievably advanced while other things were exactly the same as they are now. Besides the unmanned drones, regular automobiles seemed to be the only form of transportation and clothing didn’t appear to be any different than it currently is. Meanwhile, Memo was able to pass cash through a machine and have it appear at his family’s home instantaneously and Luz (Leonor Varela) worked as a writer who transcribed other people’s memories into a keyboard-less computer and was able to have those memories she didn’t experience appear vividly on the computer.
• This film gives a pretty bleak outlook. Without giving too much away, the ending seemed like a short term fix to one town’s problem when the entire world appeared to be on a path towards destruction.
• This is more selfish than anything but I felt like the story was relatively small compared to the overall idea they came up with. Where films like The Matrix went HUGE, this movie went the other direction. It was probably a situation where the budget dictated how far they could go with the film but it would have been great to see what somebody like Danny Boyle could have done with this script and a boatload of money.

BEST PERFORMANCE
Luis Fernando Pena as Memo.

MOST UNDERRATED PERFORMANCE
Loved Jacob Vargas as Manolo in the film Traffic and in Sleep Dealer, he put on a winning performance as the reluctant agent to a force much greater than him.

FAVORITE SCENE
Memo first uses his nodes to work a construction job in San Diego.

HEY, IT'S THAT GUY...
Leonor Varela, Nyssa from Blade II. Jacob Vargas, Manolo from Traffic.

REMINDED ME OF...
The Lives of Others, The Matrix

SEE ALSO...
Intacto, Amores Perros

WOULD I PURCHASE IT? Maybe

WOULD I WATCH IT IF I CAME ACROSS IT ON CABLE? Maybe

I WILL GIVE…
-PSon