Movie Review: When Angels Sleep (2018)
Synopsis: Determined to make it home after a business meeting causes him to miss his daughter's birthday, Germán ignores the advice of police officers who pulled him over for being too exhausted and, falling asleep at the wheel, accidentally hits a teenager with his car. He attempts to do the right thing and get the girl to the hospital but her friend, Silvia, accuses him of doing it on purpose and runs away, forcing him to give chase.
Who's in it? The movie stars Julian Villagran, Marian Álvarez, Ester Exposito, Sira Alonso and Adolfo Fernandez.
Review: We didn't have any 4th of July plans this weekend, mostly because the weather reports were very inconsistent and we didn't know if we'd get sun or thunderstorms. So, after grilling some hamburgers, my wife and I looked for a movie to watch. This ended up being When Angels Sleep.
As it turns out, we've seen this movie before, though we didn't realize it until my wife remembered one of the scenes toward the end. I can't remember my opinion of it the first time around, but it wasn't my favorite movie this time.
The plot itself is decent and unpredictable, especially as the movie progressed and Germán became more desperate while Silvia (Álvarez) became more unstable. While he started out wanting to do the right thing, her actions made it much more difficult, especially when she did things that made his accident look much more intentional. I'll also admit the ending was somewhat unexpected, though it did require Germán getting some unexpected help and quite a bit of incompetence from the police.
My biggest problem with this movie is I wasn't sure who I was supposed to be rooting for because there was no clear protagonist. Germán may have tried to do the right thing after the accident but also wouldn't have been in the spot he was had he simply listened to the police and spent the night in a motel. Heck, even his angry wife (Alonso) probably would have understood and supported that decision unless she was some sort of monster (the jury is still out on that one). He then only compounded it by stalking Silvia in the most murderous way possible rather than just driving to the hospital, explaining what happened and asking someone to go in search of the teenager.
As I told my wife, I might have been able to consider Silvia the protagonist had the movie been told from her point of view and if Germán been a truly bad guy but since that wasn't the case, she just came off as someone who was going out of her way to make the situation worse than it needed to be and that only made it harder to feel sorry for her, even after some of the extreme actions Germán takes.
Final Opinion: The movie has a somewhat interesting plot but that is diminished a bit by not having anyone that was remotely deserving of a happy ending. As I mentioned, had this been told from Silvia's perspective, with her being a real potential victim, it would have been better than it was in its present form.
My Grade: C
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Here are some reviews of other movies from 2018:
Movie Review: The Equalizer 2 (2018)
Movie Review: Andre the Giant (2018)
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