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Sleep Dealer

Play trailer Poster for Sleep Dealer PG-13 2009 1h 29m Sci-Fi Play Trailer Watchlist
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73% Tomatometer 33 Reviews 51% Popcornmeter 100,000+ Ratings
Memo (Luis Fernando Peña) is a hacker living an impoverished existence in the degraded Mexico of the future. Upon detecting his hacking activities, the military attacks his home. Memo escapes to Tijuana, where he becomes involved with Luz (Leonor Varela), a journalist who plugs her body into the Internet and sells her memories for others to download. When Luz takes on a mysterious assignment and Memo lands a high-tech factory job, they descend into a cyber-nightmare and discover a deadly truth.

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Sleep Dealer

Sleep Dealer

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Critics Consensus

Sleep Dealer's depth and energy are almost enough to overcome a shaky screenplay and pedestrian acting.

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Critics Reviews

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Jordan Hoffman UGO 08/11/2009
A-
This Sundance hit takes the "jacking in" premise we've seen in everything from Neuromancer to eXistenZ and looks at it from the point of view of third world migrant workers. Go to Full Review
Peter Hartlaub Houston Chronicle 06/19/2009
2/4
Sleep Dealer is flawed, but still vibrant and inventive. Whether he finds larger budgets or keeps doing movie like this, Rivera is definitely a filmmaker to follow. Go to Full Review
Brian Tallerico Movie Retriever 06/06/2009
I'm glad to have science fiction back in the forefront in 2009 but that doesn't mean they're all going to work. Consider Sleep Dealer a near-miss. Go to Full Review
Alejandro Hirsch Saed PopMatters 09/12/2022
Sleep Dealer seems to argue that, through storytelling, multicultural collaboration, and spectacular action, even in the most extreme cases, the border is still an imaginary space that can be broken. Go to Full Review
Jorge (JJ) Negrete Butaca Ancha 09/17/2015
An important movie with a lot of deep themes and spearpoint for the new Mexican sci-fi. [Full review in Spanish] Go to Full Review
Mark R. Leeper Mark Leeper's Reviews 03/19/2015
9/10
full of plausible evolutions of current technology with a believable if not pleasant feel for how these changes will fit into our world. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Valeria O 11/04/2024 I would rather sleep than watch this movie. See more 08/31/2020 I am not a big fan of Mexican movies. But this one passed my time. Other than few cheesy special effects and illogical story line, it worth to watch. It will pass your time. That's all. See more 07/17/2019 Considering that it came out long before America's recent hard right turn toward nativism, the film is a searing and uncannily prescient indictment of US-Mexico relations, from exploitation of poor laborers to inhospitality at the border. Filmed on the sparsest of budgets, the resulting austere aesthetic aptly mirrors the desolation of both the Oaxacan landscape and the prospects of its impoverished inhabitants, while in turn proving that really great science fiction relies on philosophical ideas, not special effects or rigorous technological authenticity. Yet while the financial constraints may have resulted in rather unrealistic visuals, the simplicity of the production provides a portentious vision of deeper socio-economic truths, recognizing well ahead of public consciousness (at least within the US and Hollywood) the looming menace of water scarcity, ecoterrorists, outsourced labor thanks to the technology, precariousness at the southern border—including the threat of its closing and the building of a wall that looks more like an ineffective fence—the use of drones to serve the imperialist interest of capitalism, cheered on by jingoistic media, and so on. This dystopian prophecy is disturbing not because of what seems strange, like the surreal sequences of workers jacked-in to their machinery, making love and buildings with wires extending in and out of their erogenous nodes like a McLuhanite nightmare (or better still: McLuhanightmare), but because, barely a decade later, it all seems so familiar. See more 07/01/2019 I at first was not willing to watch it but then I saw who the main actor was and I honestly like his work. When I saw it, of course the low budget cgi or animations were just out of place but it still helps with the story. If only the film was remade or made in a more recent year where better tech then those fails could be opposite. Otherwise this was a really good film, original indeed. Wished I was part of the crew! :D See more 02/25/2016 A dystopian future that is the dream of some GOP politics in USA. See more 12/03/2015 It's basically The Matrix. Memo and Neo. Come on, even I could have been more creative. See more Read all reviews
Sleep Dealer

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Movie Info

Synopsis Memo (Luis Fernando Peña) is a hacker living an impoverished existence in the degraded Mexico of the future. Upon detecting his hacking activities, the military attacks his home. Memo escapes to Tijuana, where he becomes involved with Luz (Leonor Varela), a journalist who plugs her body into the Internet and sells her memories for others to download. When Luz takes on a mysterious assignment and Memo lands a high-tech factory job, they descend into a cyber-nightmare and discover a deadly truth.
Director
Alex Rivera
Producer
Anthony Bregman
Screenwriter
Alex Rivera, David Riker
Distributor
Maya Releasing
Rating
PG-13 (Sexuality|Some Violence)
Genre
Sci-Fi
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Apr 17, 2009, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 10, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA)
$75.7K
Runtime
1h 29m
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