Insomnia film review

certificate_15

INSOMNIA

Inspector Will Dormer (Al Pacino) suggests going to the local school to interview one of the pupils when someone points out that it's 10.30 at night. Dormer peers through the sunlit window. "When does it get dark around here?" he asks. "It doesn't." Although the summer sun never sets on Nightmute, Alaska - the Halibut fishing capital of the world - things are about to get very dark for the veteran LAPD detective.

Director Christopher Nolan, who played with time so originally in Memento, uses Insomnia's permanent daylight to equally unsettling effect in this taut thriller. Pacino gives his best performance in some time as the irascible Dormer who, along with his partner Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan), has been sent to Nightmute to investigate the brutal murder of a young girl. The assignment isn't simply to assist the local police, including the eager rookie Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank), but also provides the two feuding detectives with some respite from the publicity surrounding their involvement in an internal investigation. Dormer would soon wish he had remained in LA as events and lack of sleep take their toll, driving the increasingly cranky detective to the verge of a breakdown.

A remake of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same title, Insomnia provides a forceful glimpse into the psyche of a policeman whose morals have become corrupted and who now finds both his career and life threatened. Switching the film's location, screenwriter Hillary Seitz has captured perfectly the bleak and disorienting mood of an Alaskan wilderness town. "There are two types of people in Alaska," explains Dormer's hotelier (Maura Tierney), "the ones who were born here and the ones who come to escape something." The writer Walter Finch (Robin Williams) falls into the latter category. Linked to the murdered girl, he becomes involved in a psychological battle with Dormer, over whom he holds a dark secret.

Following a series of slushy roles, Nolan's choice of Williams as the shrewd and quietly sinister Finch is inspired. It marks a welcome shift in the comic's career, and the scenes between Williams and Pacino harness an effective tension. Nolan has shown that as well as his ability to sustain an intriguing mystery, he can also solicit strong performances from his stars. Convincing Pacino to suppress his more exaggerated tendencies is the key to his intense portrayal of Dormer.