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INSOMNIA Send This Review to a Friend
Performance is virtually everything in this thriller based on a Norwegian counterpart and directed by Christopher Nolan ("Memento") from a script by Hillary Seitz. Al Pacino, looking increasingly punchy from sleep deprivation, has seldom been better than as Los Angeles detective Will Dormer, in Alaska to help solve a brutal murder of a young girl. Hillary Swank, redeeming herself after her "An Affair of the Necklace" dud, scores well as local cop Ellie Burr, who looks up to Dormer and has studied his cases. Martin Donovan is effective as Hap, Dormer's partner, who threatens to reveal that Dormer planted evidence in a Los Angeles case under investigation. Add Robin Williams in fine, anti-type form playing a dramatic role as novelist Walter Finch, identified early as the killer, who learns of Dormer's and Hap's pasts and tries to outwit Dormer in the stalking game that follows.
All four actors are so good that they almost make one overlook the more preposterous ploys of the screenplay that might lead us to say, "Hey, wait a minute--it would never happen this way" or "This face-off conversation would never take place." Likewise, Nolan's use of the Alaskan settings and Wally Pfister's cinematography also go a long way toward diverting our attention from worrying about logic.
Dormer's lack of sleep results partly from realizing it's the end of the line for him, telegraphed by what traumatically occurs while trying to catch the killer, and partly from being in Alaska at a time when it is always daylight. Pacino does a terrific job of showing his battle weariness, as well as tossing off brittle lines of dialogue that flash Dormer's seasoned background. We of course know that it will be the less experienced Burr who puts the pieces together.
"Insomnia" builds to a life and death violent struggle so typical of thrillers that such endings have become a cliché no matter how they're handled. After the action sequence there is at least a welcome coda that gives Dormer the last spoken word but leaves Burr to resolve a crisis of conscience. A Warner Brothers release.
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