Russell Crowe’s Sleeping Dogs panned by critics, raising questions about the future of his movie career
Another round of terrible reviews has notable film critics wondering aloud if Russell Crowe’s movie career is now unsalvageable.
The Aussie actor’s latest film Sleeping Dogs is getting panned by critics.
Crowe stars as a cynical and grizzly cop trying to solve a murder while battling Alzheimer’s.
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The consensus is that Crowe tries hard, but Sleeping Dogs is nothing more than a cheap imitation of Academy Award-winning director Christoper Nolan’s “Memento”.
One review even says Crowe has entered the Liam Neeson stage of his career: making B-grade films for nothing more than the money.
“Crowe plays (the role) with the kind of gravity that justifies a star’s paycheck,” a review by Paste says.
“I believe the formal term is ‘Neesoning’.
“It’s easy to believe in the drunken, loyalty-above-law reprobate that the old Roy sounds like, and the foggier, somewhat gentler man who must hold instinctive regrets, even if he can’t remember what they are.
“Crowe, even with an American accent that sounds vaguely like Dustin Hoffman, gives Roy a quiet dignity.”
The review for The Daily Beast says: “Crowe continues to prove that he’s better than the B-grade projects he’s now offered.”
In a review for RogerEbert.com, Brian Tallerico says that while he keeps hoping the Crowe revival is “just around the corner”, this definitely isn’t it.
“While Crowe gives more to this drowsy film than it deserves, it actually has me concerned now that the Oscar winner might head in the other direction, getting sucked into the world of cheapie VOD thrillers that have dominated the resumes of actors who used to be more discerning (sorry, Travolta fans),” he writes.
“Crowe is better than ‘Sleeping Dogs’. Most actors are.”
An analysis of Metacritic’s aggregate scores for Crowe reveals just how much of a career slump he is in.
The recent Land of Bad where he played a drone pilot scored just 57.
The Pope’s Exorcist in 2023 scored just 45.
And the 2022 film Poker Face, where he played a crazed tech billionaire, scored just 43.
Meanwhile, his 2000 movie Unhinged about road rage scored a lowly 40.
There was also The Mummy alongside Tom Cruise in 2017 that scored just 37.
That movie has the ignominy of getting a zero from prestigious Wall Street Journal reviewer Joe Morgenstern.
He labelled it “a movie that goes beyond defying comprehension to being truly incomprehensible”.
