10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
But this movie snoozes..., September 27, 2001
Just rented this movie, and although I never review stuff, I had warn potential viewers. Don't buy into the "riveting" and other marketing blurbs in the review. The main character's mission in uncovering an "AIDS coverup" is highly convoluted to the point it makes absolutely no sense. And as far as acting, the main character, Stephan, is cute and the actor holds his own, but the rest of the cast walk through the film like they're helping out a grad student finish a film thesis. In fact, the entire movie plays out like a bad college film. Perhaps the unusual genre of a gay thriller (??) propelled it into national distribution. Probably the saddest part of the entire experience is the writer's attempt at drawing a parallel between Puccini's exquisite opera "Turandot" and the deranged murderer's attack of HIV+ men. Somehow, the entire population of San Francisco seems to know the story of Turandot (but oddly, not how to pronounce it). A scene where an opera singer bursts into "Nessun Dorma" (the tenor aria "No One Sleeps" -- get it? get it?) in the middle of a restaurant had me rolling on the floor. Somehow I don't think I was supposed to be laughing. There are a lot of solid, well-written yet low budget gay films out there--unfortunately, this isn't one of them.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Positive On Bearing a Cross, May 19, 2002
This review is from: No One Sleeps (DVD)
The protagonist of "No One Sleeps" is Stefan Hein (played by Tom Wlaschiha), a doctoral student from a university in Berlin, who visits San Francisco to make a presentation at GGU (presumably Golden Gate University). Stefan presents an old idea, originally taken up by his father, that AIDS came about around 1978 when the US government allegedly tested varieties of sheep viruses on prisoners in return for releasing the prisoners earlier than expected. Although the reception to the presentation was rather impolite, Stefan is determined to spend some time in the City seeing if he can find any more records or people to substantiate the theory.
At the university, Stefan makes three acquaintances. One is a friendly graduate student, Sascha; one is a neurologist, Dr. Richard Burroghs (played by Richard Conti), who says he found Stefan's presentation the best of the day; the third is a bearded hunk, Jeffrey Russo (played by Jim Thalman), who approaches Stefan.
Meanwhile, one dead body has already shown up in a Presidio fortification. Stefan's research led him via an AIDS Project office to a club kid, whose entrance is as a corpse. At both deaths, witnesses heard music from Puccini's last grand opera, "Turandot".
Stefan pokes around. The police poke around. Connections gradually appear between the characters. Some people hum tunes from "Turandot". One character is on the board of the San Francisco Opera, which is currently performing the work. Meanwhile Stefan is being very determined to hook up with a promising, though dangerous character, who works as a waiter. Is it love, lust, or research? Meanwhile, the FBI is unusually attentive to events. Climax. Incomplete resolution.
Tom Wlaschiha attractively carried the movie. Jim Thalman and Richard Conti also gave good acting performances. Karl Fischer and Brian Yates did well in smaller roles as a nurse and a volunteer, respectively, for an AIDS-related service. The rest of the cast merits little comment.
It was nice to have new San Francisco settings, with the Potrero, Tenderloin, and South of Market Districts shown, instead of the usual tourist areas (including Castro Street). Having one scene at the Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma was a good change of pace.
The movie does bound along without giving complete back stories or explicitly tying up the loose ends. Stefan has some information before the action starts and some ideas on how to follow it up. His main methodology is walk wordlessly through sex clubs and wait for the clues and key characters to show up. He finds out about a third victim before the body is even removed from the premises. Intuitions. He is able to take a complicated route to break and enter without rehearsal. Lots of people have detailed memories of the plot of "Turandot". The relationships between the main bad guys is quite opaque. Why did Stefan keep wearing a cross? Who searched Stefan's room? Who killed one of the bad guys? Would the police be so lackadaisical? The list goes on. On a first viewing, one notices lots of loose ends. On a second viewing, one can use imagination to fill in many, but not all, of the gaps.
On the "Turandot" question, local opera fans really do replay their CDs and reread the librettos of the operas selected for performance each season by the San Francisco Opera. Stefan seems to live in a gay-friendly+ apartment building; the bad guys have reason to know the opera; the coincidence is not as impossible as some think. Still, the singing of "Nessun Dorma" at the party afterward seems unlikely, as a good singer saves his voice for the big time; maybe the wine flowed too freely?
My first viewing netted two stars. A second viewing netted three. A third would not earn a fourth. See it for Tom Wlaschiha, an interesting premise, and some new scenery.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Nessun dorma, February 19, 2006
This review is from: No One Sleeps (DVD)
Jochen Hick wrote and directed this little thriller of a suspense film based on the concept that the AIDS virus was a sheep virus mutated by the government to rid the world of gays and was apparently tested on convicts in the years before the outbreak of the hideous disease. Were it not for the poignancy of the concept of the film, this would fall into the category of the many films about the ruination of the world by a rampant non-prejudicial infective organism.
Stefan (Tom Wlaschiha) journeys from Berlin to San Francisco to investigate his father's scientific suppositions about the induced sheep virus and its effects of the convicts in whom it was infused. He meets with some disdain and resistance to a dead theory, but also encounters some folks who know of the theory and support his investigation. Simultaneously with his visit a series of serial murders takes place, each victim killed in a similar manner and each murder apparently accompanied by strains of music from Puccini's opera 'Turandot' which just happens to be opening at the San Francisco Opera. A police investigator Louise Tolliver (Irit Levi) and her companion cop (Kalene Parker) follow the murders while Stefan makes the rounds of the sex clubs and bars in San Francisco trying to locate men who may have been guinea pigs for his father's theory. He encounters a strange lad Jeffrey (Jim Thalman) with whom he has a cat and mouse attraction and a prominent Doctor Burroughs (Richard Conti) who seems oddly involved in the cast of suspects. How this all come to an end is the play of the film, a story as much about the search for self identity between Stefan and Jeffery as it is a case for investigation of murders.
While Tom Wlaschiha, Jim Thalman and Richard Conti do well with their roles (they are the only three who have any prior acting experience in the film!), the quality of the film sags considerably by the less than acceptable minimally talented Irit Levy and Kaylene Parker: when on screen the credibility of the story drops below zero. There are some small cameos by other actors that brighten the screen for the moments they inhabit, but in all the film is drowned by the incessant replay of 'Nessun dorma' as sung by Mario del Monaco from a recording o the opera - and that seems to be the reason for making the film! Good idea for a film and some good characterizations by the actors, but there is no resolution of the initial premise that started the whole thing. Grady Harp, February 06
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