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Insomnia: Momentarily Rousing
By Teddy Durgin
tedfilm@aol.com

Insomnia is a movie that dares to ask the question, "How many extreme close-ups can a director show of Al Pacino's face before the audience leaves the theater screaming?"

Looking more weathered than ever, Pacino plays Will Dormer, a decorated LAPD detective who is assigned to a murder case in small-town Alaska. The victim is a teenage girl, who was beaten and strangled. The reason for this assignment is twofold: 1) Dormer has made a career out of solving tough cases; and 2) he is under suspicion of corruption back in Los Angeles. Whether it's a guilty conscience or the strain of his many years on the job, Dormer finds it impossible to get any sleep at night. His insomnia is made even worse by the fact that he arrives in Alaska during that part of the year when the state is under six months of continuous daylight.

Dormer is accompanied by his partner, Hap (Martin Donovan), who clashes with the older cop over the political mess they've left behind. When Hap tells Dormer that he is going to cut a deal with Internal Affairs upon their return and tell all he knows about Dormer planting evidence, the two detectives have words. A day later during a stakeout gone wrong, Dormer finds himself pursuing the likely killer in a thick fog (the movie's signature sequence). From a distance, Will takes aim and fires his weapon. Hap is killed. The rest of the movie is a test of nerves and ethics between the unhinged Dormer; straight-arrow local cop Ellie (Hilary Swank); and the killer, Walter Finch (Robin Williams), a reclusive crime novelist who saw Dormer shoot Hap and uses that information to play mind games with the detective.

A remake of a 1997 Norwegian thriller, Insomnia is a film that gets a lot of things right. The best compliment I can give this picture is it has the most stunning locations I've seen on film since The Lord of the Rings. I wish more movies had as good a sense of setting as Insominia does. The opening shots of a small plane flying over mountain ice formations that appear both beautiful and harsh at the same time immediately put me under a spell.

Also, the direction by Christopher Nolan (Memento) is efficient and stylish. As Dormer becomes increasingly unbalanced, Nolan pumps in ghostly images of people from Will's past, weird flashes of blood soaking through fabric, and half-muted blurs of light constantly piercing darkness. Pacino does his usual great job playing a cop, and some of the supporting roles are particularly well cast (especially Maura Tierney as a hotel clerk who eventually becomes Dormer's confidante).

Ah, but you can sense I'm gonna throw in a "but" here sooner or later, can't ya? A "however" or an "unfortunately." Well, however and unfortunately, I never really found the film to be overly gripping. A great movie would have made me race home and write my review right away. A great film would have had me on the phone or sending email to friends the minute I got home. Insomnia is just not a great film. I never felt like I was getting enough information about these characters to really become emotionally invested in the action.

Insomnia gives us a puzzle, yes, but it's not a particularly brilliant one. First of all, the crime isn't anymore pressing than your average Law & Order whodunit. And it barely feels important or even heinous enough to warrant calling two homicide detectives all the way from L.A. Why not someplace closer like Anchorage? Or Seattle? I would have understood if this murder fit the pattern of some unsolved killing in the L.A. zip code. But it doesn't. Heck, I'd even go so far as to say that when we do get all the information, the local cops (the town has a decent-sized department) could have solved this murder fairly easily without Dormer's expertise.

And come on! The killer is Robin Williams! (I'm not giving anything away here. The commercials and trailers tell you he is the murderer in advance.) While Williams tones it down and keeps the sarcasm and histrionics to a minimum, we never get the sense that this is an evil to be reckoned with. The two teen killers in Murder by Numbers were much creepier than Walter is in this movie. So was Kevin Spacey in Seven. Those characters' acts and attitudes outraged me. I wanted to see them punished.

Walter Finch is a dog lover, for Pete's sake. I was more worried about who was gonna take care of his pooches if he ever got caught.

If there is one theme to this review, it's the importance of information--who knows what, and what does each character intend to do with what they know when they know it. Sometimes we know more than the characters. Other times, we're completely in the dark, eager for more pieces of the puzzle, more information. Dormer has to cover up Hap's murder (unfortunately, we never really learn whether Dormer shot him intentionally or by mistake from a lack of sleep), and the only way he can do that is to placate the only eyewitness ... Finch. Swank's wet-behind-the-ears cop makes for a terrific fly in the ointment. Ellie starts off idolizing Dormer, a detective whose cases she studied at the police academy. Gradually, though, she starts to suspect foul play in Hap's death.

So, what's my final verdict on Insomnia? Definitely check it out at an afternoon matinee, if this is your kind of flick. It's not overly violent, and it will make you think. Not enough to keep you up later that night, mind you, but enough to warrant a bargain movie ticket at your local cineplex.

Insomnia is rated R for language, some violence, and some very brief nudity.



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