It’s always interesting to compare American films about the UK with the films made by the people who actually live there.

American films about the UK are all about meeting quirky people, visiting clean and brightly-lit castles, maybe falling in love with a member of royalty, and perhaps discovering that your father is actually a member of Parliament played by Colin Firth.  If the action moves out of London or into Scotland or Wales, one cab be assured that it will involve an American having car trouble outside of a goat farm and then meeting an eccentric but handsome veterinarian.  If the film takes place in Scotland, the veterinarian and his randy father will wear a kilt.  The same thing will happen if the film is set in Wales because most Americans don’t know the difference between Scotland and Wales.

Films about the UK that are actually made in the UK tend to be visually moody and full of people dealing with economic uncertainty while living in depressingly tiny flats.  The cities are often portrayed as being covered in graffiti and no one, not even the film’s hero, is ever particularly happy.  British films about the UK are full of melancholy, rainy atmosphere and are often as violent as American films about the UK are quirky.

Dead Before They Wake takes place and was filmed in some of the darkest corners of Glasgow.  Nathan Shepka plays Alex, a nightclub bouncer who occasionally takes on other jobs.  He’s someone who knows how to handle himself in a fight and he often returns to his small and cramped home with split knuckles and a bruised face.  At the same time, he’s also a loving son whose deaf and very ill father is in a retirement community.  (His father encourages Alex to settle down and get married.)  Outside of his father, the only person with whom he has an regular contact is Gemma (Grace Cordell), a teacher who moonlights as a stripper to make extra money.  (That said, she still finds herself receiving an eviction notice.)  Alex pays Gemma to have sex with him but it’s obvious that there’s something more to their relationship than just a transaction.  They’re two people lost in an increasingly dark world.

Alex is approached by a shabby but well-intentioned attorney named Evan (Sylvester McCoy).  Evan hires Alex to track down a 14 year-old girl who Evan believes has been abducted by a sex trafficking ring.  The girl’s mother is a heroin addict.  The girl’s father is a government official.  Alex reluctantly takes the job and he soon manages to link the girl’s disappearance to a low-rent operation run by Amar (Manjot Sumal).  Amar is someone who is very protective of his own teenage daughter but who has no problem with the idea of abducting girls who are the same age or younger and forcing them to work in his makeshift brothel.  While Alex tries to find a way to infiltrate Amar’s operation, a mysterious man named Holden (Patrick Bergin) watches from the shadows.

Though the plot may remind some of Taken, Dead Before They Wake is far more thoughtful than any Liam Neeson’s admittedly entertaining thrillers.  Alex is not a former secret agent with a precise set of skills.  He’s just a tough guy who knows how to throw (and take) a punch and his investigation of Amar’s operation pushes him over the edge not because he’s trying to rescue a family member but because Alex is a human being who cannot believe or forgive the amount of depravity that he discovers during his investigation.  Throughout the film, there are hints that Amar’s operation is actually fairly small-scale when compared to some of the others.  A meeting with a representative of a national syndicate brings to mind the scandals of the late British DJ Jimmy Savile, who may not be well-known in the States but who, in the UK, became a symbol of depravity when it was revealed, after his death, that he was a prolific pedophile and sex abuser whose actions were largely ignored and sometimes even covered up by the British establishment.

Throughout Dead Before They Wake, there are scenes and details that establish that the film is more than just a revenge flick.  Gemma’s struggle to survive financially is handled with sensitivity and Grace Cordell gives an authentic performance in the role.  The scene where she tries to hide her growing fear upon learning that a picture of her dancing has appeared online and been seen by at least one of her students is wonderfully-acted.  The film contrasts Alex’s small flat with the large home that is owned by Amar and the film opens with a disturbing scene that shows just how exactly Amar kidnaps the girls who he then gets hooked on drugs and forces to work for him.  Dead Before They Wake is about much more than just action.

Dead Before They Wake does have its flaws.  Towards the end of the film, we’re expected to believe that one character overlooked something so obvious that it momentarily makes it difficult for us to suspend our disbelief.  But, for the most part, this is a disturbing and effective thriller, one that concludes on a proper note of Scottish melancholy.