Dark and lonely desperation

Mike Hodges's intriguing thriller is about a man obsessed with his past deeds and his present feelings of emptiness. Clive Owen plays Will Graham, once a big man in Brixton (his name is bandied about like a legend), now living in a camper van in Wales, working in the forest, silent and unwashed, an inner darkness threatening to burst through his skin.

Back in London, his younger brother Davey (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is dealing drugs to rich blondes. He is cute and cool and dresses with delicate care: everyone admires him. But when Will tries to get in touch, Davey's phone rings off the hook.

Perturbed by this more than he can understand, Will feels forced to drive south to investigate, but the sight of Brixton makes him vomit, such is the intensity of his anxiety. Will's return causes a ripple. There are people about who would rather see him dead (Malcolm McDowell, Ken Stott) and others (Charlotte Rampling, Sylvia Syms) who want him to be the man he was, instead of a misanthrope in an anorak come to rattle their cage.

Will endures all of this with a passive acceptance, then carefully, frighteningly, he locates the source of this strength and acts.

Hodges films London restlessly, as though searching for some kind of relief. We are taken from cafés to flats to streets to houses to morgues to garages, in short unsentimental scenes while he drums up an odd, powerful mood of apprehensiveness.

The atmosphere is one of darkly lit desperation - you know from the very start that the film will move towards a lonely finish.

Incidentally, if Owen isn't cast as James Bond after his turn in this, those responsible are crackpots. However droll and sophisticated Bond might be, his moral temperature is absolutely zero, and Owen has the requisite unknowableness and cruelty in his face for the part.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Cert: 15