In the new movie Sleepless, Jamie Foxx is back to playing a badass who takes the law into his own hands; the type of role that has served him well in films like Law Abiding Citizen and Django Unchained. Only this time, there's a twist: He's a cop. Foxx plays a corrupt Las Vegas police officer who has to go up against his criminal associates after his son is kidnapped. It's certainly a wild ride, but is Sleepless a true story?
It's not. The film is actually a remake of a 2011 French film called Nuit Blanche, with its English title being Sleepless Night. That movie tells the story of a cop who robs a drug kingpin of his cocaine, and has his own son taken as a result. He then must trade the drugs for his son — but of course the drugs go missing and he has to track them down. Foxx's remake doesn't stray too far from the original, though obviously the setting, characters, and some details have changed.
Sleepless Night was written by Nicolas Saada and Frédéric Jardin, who also directed. The movie has a 96 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning Sleepless has a lot to live up to. The screenplay for the adaptation was penned by Andrea Berloff, whose other credits include World Trade Center and Straight Outta Compton, and she hasn't been shy about giving the writers of Sleepless Night credit for influencing her story. On December 22, 2016, Berloff tweeted at Saada after he mentioned how excited he was for the new film, writing, "From the brilliant imagination of @nicolas895."
Sleepless isn't based on a true story, but its origins can be traced directly to an action-packed French film from five years ago. So if you want to see the original before seeing the remake, be sure and check out Sleepless Night.
