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American producers can sometimes have an unrealistic view of the UK, born of too many costume dramas set in country houses during an eternal summer a few years either side of the First World War. Not Mike Kaplan. The Rhodes Islander has worked here on and off for the past 30 years, dating back to when he first met director Mike Hodges at the time of Get Carter, the seminal 1970 movie reckoned by many to be the best British gangster flick of all time.

Reuniting with Croupier star Clive Owen, legendary British director Mike Hodges is making his first gangster movie since Get Carter. But, says producer Mike Kaplan, 32 years is a long time and I’ll sleep when i’m dead is darker, richer and more mature.

As Kaplan is the first to admit, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, Hodges’ first gangster movie since Carter, isn’t a costume picture; it never goes near a country house; and it is set very much in the present, some of it in London, some of it in rural Wales.

The latter is where Kaplan finds himself, three days from the end of principal photography, experiencing the aftermath of one of the worst storms to hit Britain in 20 years. What is more, the production is based in and around Fishguard, which is pretty much where the storm first came ashore, bringing down power lines across Britain.

Kaplan, however, is sanguine about it. “The power stayed on,” he says, “and the greyness kind of works for the movie: it fits the tone of the film. Mind you, the mist we had yesterday - that was a little different. But it’s just Mother Nature exerting her will: what can you do?”

The reteaming of Kaplan and Hodges isn’t the only reunion on I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: Hodges has linked up once again with such key crew members as DOP Mike Garfath, production designer Jon Bunker and costume designer Evangeline Harrison. But all of this is distinctly secondary by comparison with the major reunion which really got the film off the ground: that between Hodges and star Clive Owen for the first time since Croupier.

The sleeper to end all sleepers, Hodges’ last film opened and closed in the UK without making any real impact and was proving difficult to get into release in the US. Which is where Kaplan - whose expertise lies in marketing and distribution - came in. Having found audiences in the UK for such different films as Barbet Schroeder’s The Valley (Obscured by Clouds) and Jack Hazan’s A Bigger Splash (and also credited with dreaming up the ‘Ultimate Trip’ campaign which launched Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey), the producer reckoned he could bring Croupier and American audiences together. “FilmFour allowed me to run with it,” he says, “and I finally made a deal with Shooting Gallery.” Unlike Shooting Gallery (which folded not long after), Croupier went on to be a significant critical and commercial success in the US (and was subsequently successfully re-released in the UK).

Now, some three years later, Kaplan - together with Roger Marino and Michael Corrente of Revere Pictures - is back working with Hodges on I’ll Sleep, from a script by Trevor Preston which the director first read some seven years ago. After the success of Croupier, making it suddenly became a possibility.

Hodges and Preston had known one another since working together on the Granada Television documentary series, World in Action. They discussed and fine-tuned the screenplay and began to start looking for finance. And, although the theme, the cast and the entirety of the crew are British, the money finally came from the US: from Revere, the company set up by Marino and director/producer Corrente (like Kaplan, Rhode Islanders) to make “quality films of integrity and commercial appeal”; from Peter Hoffman’s Seven Arts, which is handling international distribution; and with a commitment from Paramount Classics, whose boss, Ruth Vitale, immediately sparked to the screenplay and to the possibility of working with the team that had made Croupier.

Owen - who has since made up part of the ensemble cast of Robert Altman’s Gosford Park and starred opposite Angelina Jolie in Beyond Borders - plays Will, a former leading figure in the London underworld who has made the break and buried himself in the depths of Wales. To say he finds peace would be an over-simplification: he can never entirely escape his past, has difficulty sleeping - as the title suggests, sleep-deprivation is a major theme of the film - and has to make a new life for himself without credentials. But he is on the road to recovery.

Then events in London begin to draw him back like a malevolent magnet. His street-smart younger brother, Davey (Jonathan Rhys-Myers), is attacked, and Will, in a kind of mirror-image of Michael Caine’s Jack in Get Carter, returns to the smoke and retunes his instincts to the underworld, coming up against a series of increasingly unpleasant characters, but also reviving his relationship with restaurant-owner Helen.

The film’s cast bears testament to Hodges’ reputation. “There are a lot of people who want to do something with Mike,” says Kaplan. “He’s a major director whom many actors haven’t had the chance to work with.” Among those who leapt at that chance when shown the script to I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead are Charlotte Rampling, who plays Helen; and Malcolm McDowell, who plays Boad, a majorly unsavoury part of the London scene.

McDowell has had to commute for the role between London and Chicago, where he is working with Robert Altman on The Company, the director’s new ensemble piece about the world of ballet. Rampling, meanwhile, is making her first major film in her native country for quite a while. “Everyone wanted to work with Mike and Clive,” notes Kaplan, “and this is an absolutely terrific script - a real page-turner. It’s a first-rate package. And, for those who remember and admire Get Carter, this is a more mature, more adult-themed film. It’s quality all the way.”