Review of Insomnia (2002)

Hello all! I hope everyone had a fantastic week. Today's review is my first request review! Yay! I was asked to review the movie "Insomnia," directed by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight trilogy, "Memento," "Inception," "The Prestige.") I was immediately intrigued because, once again, it's a movie I had never heard of before, AND it was directed by the great Nolan, which I thought was going to be a treat in itself. Not to mention that it stars Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank. That's a pretty stellar cast, if I say so myself!

The synopsis is what really got me excited, though: Will Dormer (played by Al Pacino) and Hap Eckhart (played by Martin Donovan) are 2 hardened detectives from L.A. that have a history of doing whatever it takes to catch a bad guy, legal or otherwise. They are sent to Alaska to assist Officer Ellie Burr (played by Hillary Swank) and the local police in catching the murderer of a local teenage girl (played by Robin Williams - He plays the murderer, not the teenage girl). In the process, Detective Dormer kills his partner. The rest of this movie follows our hero as he deals with a spiraling descent into self-doubt, guilt, and, well, insomnia while trying to clean up the mess and maintain his reputation. Is Detective Dormer any better than the criminals he locks away? By the end of the movie, no one can say for sure.

Cool! An awesome crime drama with Robin Williams as the bad guy, and Al Pacino as the protagonist? What could possibly go wrong?!
...well, apparently, a lot of things.

I have to apologize right now to the person who recommended this movie to me. I'm so sorry, but I did not like it. It's my least favorite Christopher Nolan movie, of all time. And I'll tell you why:

Cons:
1. I'm not a big fan of Al Pacino's character in this movie. Well, mainly how he changes after his partner is killed. He gets sent to Alaska during the summer, when some parts of Alaska experience a phenomena called the midnight Sun (basically, the Sun does not set for a full 24 hours). This, coupled with his extreme guilt, give him a case of insomnia from which he cannot escape. He becomes extremely fatigued, lethargic, weak, and he starts to hallucinate. The problem is, when Al Pacino is playing someone with extreme fatigue, it just comes off as dismissive. He never looks like he's tired; he just looks like he doesn't care about anything that's going on. It's hard to feel any suspense in the movie when you're following this guy around the whole time:

"I'm too tired to care about anything ever."

2. The cinematography was plain bad. They take a long time to set the back story up so that by the time Pacino kills his partner it's supposed to be a shock moment, but it's just not; all of the suspenseful scenes just weren't executed well at all. "When his partner gets shot, the scene cuts before the gunshot and the sound is super low. It cuts to Pacino looking concerned and running over to someone. Someone he shot? Or someone he watched get shot? I'm not sure if the point was to illustrate that no one on the scene could have known where the shot came from, but they show the audience 2 seconds later. So why make the gun shot scene so confusing?" - (my boyfriend said it best).

There's also a scene where Pacino is chasing Williams' character and falls into a body of water and can't get out because a bunch of logs are blocking him from getting to the surface. It's all suspenseful, and the music is swelling and intense, and then...it cuts to Pacino getting out of the water and staring blankly after Williams. Ignoring the whole "how did he get out of the water safely?" thing, Pacino didn't even shiver when he got out of the water! Alaska in the summer is still ALASKA. It's cussing cold! Stop reminding us that you did that scene on a sound stage in 80 degree water.

3. There's a random rivalry between Pacino's character and one of the younger, local Alaskan cops. I mean, I get it; in certain crime movies there's always that rivalry between the wise, older cop and the young, rough and tumble, cocky younger cop. But this Alaskan cop was such a small part of the movie that the rivalry didn't serve the story at all. And IMMEDIATELY after they met, the younger cop hated Pacino's character, and I just couldn't see why. It's like they tried to add in sub-plots that didn't go anywhere, this being one of them.

4. I almost thought Robin Williams' character was a physical manifestation of Pacino's guilt, at first. He magically just knew everything about Pacino, his past and his partner, which was confusing to me.

5. It didn't feel like a Christopher Nolan movie, at all. He is one of the best new directors of suspense movies; how could he have gone so wrong with a crime drama?! Granted, it is a remake of an older film. But still, Nolan did not do a good job with this one. He's the mastermind behind The Dark Knight Trilogy, "Inception," etc. I expected way more from him than a sub-par, boring crime drama.

Okay, I think that's all the bashing I can do to this movie. HOWEVER, there are some pros to this movie that I think made the movie watchable:

1. Robin Williams' character was really good. That should be a given, really; you can't go wrong with Robin Williams. At first I thought he was going to be playing a full-on psycho killer, but that wasn't the case at all. He was basically just a regular Joe, which makes his character even more unsettling than if he'd been a crazy killer out for the young blood of an innocent girl.

NOT a psycho killer. Right?

2. One interesting thing I liked about the movie was the fact that in the beginning, there is an obvious falling out going on between Pacino and his partner, which makes him (and the audience) question the shooting from the beginning. Any time he tries to make a good point about it being an accident, Robin Williams completely agrees, but is clearly talking about something different. So, did he do it on purpose? Was it an honest mistake?

3. While Al Pacino's character is used to breaking the law to enforce it, this is the first case where the criminal he is pursuing has committed a seemingly similar, 'accidental' crime. Not only does this give Robin Williams leverage as the only witness able to blackmail Al Pacino, but it takes a strong psychological toll on a character that has never doubted himself before. The dynamic shifts from Pacino being a good-guy cop to a potentially corrupt cop, trying to rationalize comitting the same crimes he has dedicated his life to stopping. The character of Will Dormer was super complex and awesome; it was just the actor that lacked any gusto.

4. The setting of the film was pretty clever. Having a crime drama take place somewhere that is able to have 24 hours of sunlight gives you a lot to work with, psychologically. Seemingly never seeing the end of the day can be really distressing, and it weighs heavily on your mind and body.

I think that's it, folks! I give "Insomnia" about...2.5 stars. It was okay, but unfortunately the cons outweighed the pros this time. Thanks for reading!