Russell Crowe is one of my favorite actors specially after watching his movies, The Insider, A Beautiful Mind and of course The Gladiator where he won his Oscar. Also, thriller, crime, psychology are the topics which I found interesting and I love to watch good movies about it.

Sleeping Dogs, with the genre of Thriller Mystery caught my attention when I read Russel Crowe is playing in it. So now I had both favorite genre and one of my favorite actors in one movie. Since I know Russell Crowe had gained much weight lately and due to aging may not be able to play as before but the acting is something that years of experience hardly makes it fade.

The movie was truly a thriller and also included dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. The movie had a good story and unfortunately the only thing I found not matching was presence of Karen Gillan playing the antagonist Laura Baines. Despite knowing her acting career and being good in many roles she was given before but for this movie specially against Russell Crowe who acted as Roy Freeman, was not a good choice. Tone of voice and cold acting was much distinguishable specially when it came in comparison with Russell Crowe. I think the producer could’ve made a better choice by choosing another actress like Thomasin McKenzie.

Let’s get out of the technicality and let me share with you the three inspiring messages I’ve learned from this movie.

Richard Finn: Memory is a fickle thing. What we can recall, what we can’t. Rare moments that forever imprint, banalities that don’t. sufferings so painful they’re buried deep in our mind’s recesses, forgetting till time gets them back up. Whatever the memory though, good, bad, unremarkable, they never come back all at once. They are always doled out in fragments, like pieces of a puzzle you have to wait till it completes.

This monologue from the movie is actually the foundation where the story of movie is made upon. And I loved how beautifully it was written. As a person who was always fascinated with memory and memory skills I found challenging to memorize or to remember some very important stuffs at times.

Later half way through a bible verse which I believe it to be Mathew Verse 7, is mentioned about being judgmental, a simple act we always do daily towards family, friends, strangers and even ourselves;

Wayne Devereaux: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”

Being judgmental is actually a habit I personally found it hard to manage. Even though I have learned years ago how to avoid being judgmental, but still there are times I catch myself judging others. That’s when I immediately try to stop and refrain from uttering any words. Reminding myself that I too, am not perfect in the eyes of many.

The thing is we try to judge based on our experiences of the past, which together with a lousy memory skill creates a disturbing judging parameter. It is with those faulty rules that we built upon personal limited experiences and fragments of memories glued with lots of imaginations that we judge. Therefore, judging is hell a lot more difficult than what one may imagine.   

Laura Baines: You may not have memory, Mr. Freeman, but you do have quite a damn imagination. 

There were times even I myself was thinking how can one bear the pain of some memories and how I wish I could forget some of them. At times there were others which I wish I could’ve remembered clearly so I would be able to construct a better belief around that particular event, that way I might have be able to remove a limiting belief and make a better one instead. Then I try to put myself in the shoes of those who cannot remember anything. Seems they are free, or as Laura said it;

Laura Baines: Such a funny thing, the mind. The things it can live with, and the things it can’t bear and to get to die ignorant of both. Now that is special kind of bliss.

But then just a glimpse of not remembering anything, I found it terrifying. Imagining a man who cannot remember a thing is a man who lives in terror. No matter how fragmented our memories and how such fragments create some of our beliefs which we behave upon, still is considered a blessing. Yet we should keep in mind that having memory is such a blessing to be grateful for, but also it is important to know its fragility therefore it is better not to use that tool as a mean for judging everything and everyone. After all we are just a little tiny piece in this unlimited huge world and that itself gives us a limited knowledge. So why judging others when we know our knowledge is limited.

Instead lets just enjoy life together and recall good and bad memories as lessons for our own growth.

I give the movie the rate of 6.8, but I cannot admit how much I enjoyed the movie and its twists. Going back to technicality the wrong choice of partners in such a movie could be seen in 1:07 of the movie where Laura Baines goes to Roy Freeman’s house to learn how much he knows. The conversation and the dialogue between the two don’t reflect the correct emotions that should be delivered between these two, somehow it seems like a professional actor vs an amateur one.

Yet as I said I enjoyed the story, the twist and the acting separately.

“Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.” – Luis Bunuel