Sleep Dealer

Plot

Set in a near-future, militarized world marked by closed borders, virtual labor and a global digital network that joins minds and experiences…

Release Year: 2008

Rating: 5.9/10 (2,778 voted)

Critic's Score: 59/100

Director:
Alex Rivera

Stars: Luis Fernando Peña, Leonor Varela, Jacob Vargas

Storyline
Set in a near-future, militarized world marked by closed borders, virtual labor and a global digital network that joins minds and experiences, three strangers risk their lives to connect with each other and break the barriers of technology.

Writers: Alex Rivera, David Riker

Cast:

Luis Fernando Peña
–

Memo Cruz

Metztli Adamina
–

Dolores Cruz

José Concepción Macías
–

Miguel Cruz

Tenoch Huerta
–

David Cruz

Greg Lucas
–

Drones TV Host

(as Gregg Lucas)

Martín Palomares
–

Gus Panchano

Jacob Vargas
–

Rudy Ramirez

Sean Garnhart
–

Rudy's Commander

(voice)

Guillermo Ríos
–

Rudy's Supervisor

Leonor Varela
–

Luz Martínez

Montserrat Revah
–

Luz's Computer

(voice)

Miguel A. Saldaña
–

Coyotek #1

(as Miguel Angel Saldaña)

Sergio Limon
–

Coyotek #2

José Luis Méndez
–

Coyotek #3

Carlos Valencia
–

Twiggy

Taglines:
Connect to your destiny.

Details

Official Website:
Official site |

Release Date: 10 December 2008

Filming Locations: Cadereyta, Querétaro, Mexico

Box Office Details

Budget: $2,500,000

(estimated)

Opening Weekend: $35,050
(USA)
(19 April 2009)
(18 Screens)

Gross: $75,727
(USA)
(21 June 2009)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes:
When Memo, at work operating the robot, helps the worker next to him who collapses, he is not wearing the contact lenses that he needs to operate the robot. (He did not have time to take them out.)

User Review

Underrated — Culturally significant

Rating: 8/10


Science fiction as a genre exposes two things about a culture: our
hopes for the future, and our fears for the future. What foreign
science fiction does for us then is tap directly into the hopes and
fears of a culture that is alien to us.

The story of Memo mixes the Mexican condition with a cautious approach
to an exciting technology. While "nodes" allow people to directly
connect their brains to an Internet of sorts, "sleep dealers" construct
cheap, unsafe sweatshops where noders can perform dirt-cheap labor for
developed nations, without leaving home.

There are plenty of eye-opening layers of apprehension for the future
that are taken straight from the Mexican psyche: the construction of
the authoritarian Del Rio Dam in Memo's village echoes the ongoing
"water rights" controversies throughout Central America; the closed
border with America echoes isolationist fears; the ability of an
American corporation to send warships into Mexican villages not only
with impugnity but complete openness echoes fears of American
corporate-driven hegemony.

Flag-wrapped Americans will deride this movie as Anti-American at
worst; cultural ignorance at best. But it is a different sort of
cultural ignorance that remains ignorant of the sentiments illustrated
in this well-done foreign film.