Synopsis
John LeTour is a recovering drug user who suffers insomnia and still deals to a high-end New York clientele, even thought he’s trying to move on from the business. John’s professional midlife crisis becomes something more acute — and dangerous — when he re-encounters an old flame while a string of seemingly drug-related murders rocks the city.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Willem DafoeJohn LeTour
- Susan SarandonAnn
- Dana DelanyMarianne Jost
- David ClennonRobert
- Mary Beth HurtTeresa Aranow
- Victor GarberTis Brooke
- Jane AdamsRandi Jost
- Sam RockwellJealous
- David SpadeTheological Cokehead
- Paul JabaraEddie
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
Light Sleeper isn't about the help he can get from psychics, however; it's about desperation that makes him project healing qualities upon anyone who is halfway sympathetic. The movie is familiar with its life of night and need. It finds the real human qualities in a person like the Susan Sarandon character - who, in a crisis, reacts with loyalty and quick thinking. - 80
Empire
This doesn't have the high style that made Taxi Driver or American Gigolo instant cultural icons - although Schrader shows more than a few traces of Scorsese as his camera creeps- perhaps because it's concerned with a chilly 90s that looks back with a sort of nostalgia on the cocaine-fuelled craziness of earlier years. But it does develop powerfully the themes of Schrader's earlier work and will not disappoint his fans. - 75
Rolling Stone
Schrader is out there again, testing the limits of audience tolerance. Good for him. Buoyed by his questing spirit and Dafoe's mesmerizing performance, Light Sleeper might just keep you up nights. - 75
Entertainment Weekly
Schrader seems to have found his way. In Light Sleeper, he attains a new, fluid emotionalism. The movie is a small but absorbing mood piece, a canny insider’s view of the life of a Manhattan drug dealer. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Paul Schrader's study of a middle-aged drug dealer, is a return to the director's thematic roots, an exploration of the dark side of the American psyche. - 70
The Guardian
The cast is skillfully alert and Schrader's vision is unencumbered either by sentiment or cynicism. - 70
Los Angeles Times
Light Sleeper, with its cool, critical view of life on the edge, is no film to dismiss or ignore. It's a failure perhaps, but an honorable failure. If it isn't saved by grace, it has many saving graces. - 70
Variety
Paul Schrader has created a pointed companion piece to his earlier portraits of lonely outcasts (Taxi Driver, American Gigolo). Contemplative and violent by turns, this quasi-thriller about a long-time drug dealer leaving the business has a great deal to recommend it but could have been significantly better had Schrader done some fresh plotting and not relied on his standby gunplay to resolve issues.
