Starring Russell Crowe as a detective with Alzheimer’s and Karen Gillan as his co-star, Sleeping Dogs is a movie that didn’t release to any particular critical acclaim, achieving an average rating of just 5.1/10 on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic’s weighted average of ten reviewers gave the movie 45/100. Not exactly the kind of scores studios or stars hope for when going out for review.
Contrary to review scores, though, it seems like Sleeping Dogs has received a new appreciation from fans on streaming giant Max, as it sits at a very respectable number 2 most watched of its movie offerings. Way ahead of some much more popular competitors such as Crowe’s own Gladiator, given a boost by the recent sequel, Gladiator II. It’s something that does happen — sometimes, critics get it wrong, and a movie fares much better with the general public than it does with reviewers. Having watched Sleeping Dogs, it’s not bad, although it’s easy to see why it didn’t do quite as well at the box office.
Except it seems like “not bad” is “good enough,” as Sleeping Dogs is doing much better on Max than even one of 2024’s most controversial — and popular — movies. It Ends With Us, a movie which also had mixed reviews, ended up being a smash hit with audiences. Reportedly costing only $25 million to make, the movie grossed over $348 million. Despite the critical reception, in this case, the audiences took to the movie and voted with their wallets.
It Ends With Us is a heavy romantic drama movie with themes of domestic abuse and violence, and lead actress Blake Lively was hit by criticism for her actions during press tours and for using the publicity surrounding the film to promote her other business ventures. The marketing around the movie received negative attention for its floral themes and the absence of the movie’s main theme of domestic violence, and the drama didn’t stop there.
It Ends With Us was plagued by drama between the cast too, and that’s ignoring the drama surrounding the original book and its author, Colleen Hoover. Lead actor (and director/executive producer) Justin Baldoni did the press tour alone, and appears to be persona non grata with the rest of the cast, apparently due to being “difficult” to work with. Baldoni is notably the only cast member to openly discuss the film’s difficult and heavy topic during the tour. Post-production even saw a spat between Lively and Baldoni surrounding competing recuts of the movie.
It’s safe to say that for fans of drama, It Ends With Us has enough both in and out of the movie to satisfy. Even with the drama surrounding it, audiences loved It Ends With Us at release, and it seems like they still do, as it’s number 8 on Max’s most watched movies even coming to the end of 2024.
But nothing lasts forever, and maybe it’s time to give another movie the chance to shine, as HBO subscribers are doing with Sleeping Dogs. Perhaps it’ll even take the top spot from Twisters.
