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NOWHERE TO HIDE
BROTHERS IN CRIME: Clive Owen as Will, who is trying to get out; and Jonathan Rhys-Myers as Davey, the younger brother whose exploits draw him back in.
i'll sleep when i'm dead
American producers can sometimes have an unrealistic view of the UK, born of too many costume dramas set in country houses during an eternal summer a few years either side of the First World War. Not Mike Kaplan. The Rhodes Islander has worked here on and off for the past 30 years, dating back to when he first met director Mike Hodges at the time of Get Carter, the seminal 1970 movie reckoned by many to be the best British gangster flick of all time.
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Reuniting with Croupier star
Clive Owen, legendary British
director Mike Hodges (above) is
making his first gangster movie since Get Carter. But, says
producer Mike Kaplan, 32 years
is a long time and I’ll sleep
when i’m dead is darker,
richer and more mature.
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As Kaplan is the first to admit, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, Hodges’ first gangster movie since Carter, isn’t a costume picture; it never goes near a country house; and it is set very much in the present, some of it in London, some of it in rural Wales.
The latter is where Kaplan finds himself, three days from the end of principal photography, experiencing the aftermath of one of the worst storms to hit Britain in 20 years. What is more, the production is based in and around Fishguard, which is pretty much where the storm first came ashore, bringing down power lines across Britain.
Kaplan, however, is sanguine about it. “The power stayed on,” he says, “and the greyness kind of works for the movie: it fits the tone of the film. Mind you, the mist we had yesterday - that was a little different. But it’s just Mother Nature exerting her will: what can you do?”
The reteaming of Kaplan and Hodges isn’t the only reunion on I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: Hodges has linked up once again with such key crew members as DOP Mike Garfath, production designer Jon Bunker and costume designer Evangeline Harrison. But all of this is distinctly secondary by comparison with the major reunion which really got the film off the ground: that between Hodges and star Clive Owen for the first time since Croupier.
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