No Rest for the Wicked (Insomnia (DVD))

Member Name: sandrabarber

Product:	Insomnia (DVD)
Date:	27/06/03 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Pacino's performance, the Alaskan setting

Disadvantages: Williams' performance

Nightmute, Alaska, a town of mists and perpetual daylight. A teenage girl has been murdered, and all traces of the killer's DNA painstakingly and expertly removed from her body. The close-knit community is distraught and dumbfounded, the local police nonplussed as to what to do next. Enter LAPD detective Will Dormer and his younger partner, Hap, to give the benefit of their expertise.

Both Hap and Dormer are under investigation by internal affairs. Hap (Martin Donovan) is ready to cut a deal to save his career, but Dormer (Al Pacino) wants none of it. He has a reputation in the force as a genius and a 'good' cop, but hints to Hap that there have times in his professional life when he has trod a fine line. He believes that Hap has been partnered with him to spy on him, despite Hap's obvious hero worship and belief in Dormer's essential goodness, and their relationship is thus suspicious and strained.

Taking immediate charge, Dormer contrives to catch the killer by trickery, resulting in the police finding themselves out on a damp, foggy Alaskan rocky beach. Dormer's plan at first appears to have worked, but then tragedy strikes and the guilt is on Will's shoulders.

Unable to sleep in the permanent sunlight and/or because of his troubled conscience, Dormer finds his judgement increasingly impaired and his desperation growing. Eventually things spiral out of control and he finds himself knee deep in a situation from which there seems no escape and no right moral path.

As the movie ends, we are left making up our own minds about Will's goodness and guilt, and asked the film's main question, which is whether the end justifies the means.

Al Pacino as Will Dormer is magnificent in this movie. His world weary arrogance and disintegrating mental health are portrayed with a compelling intensity that harks back to his early Godfather days in terms of its power and honesty.

Almost everyon
e in this movie is good (particularly Hillary Swank as a young cop in awe of Dormer's reputation), but the movie is 90% Pacino's. We feel his exhaustion, frustration, panic and shame as he feels it, and we constantly find ourselves wondering if we would do things differently in his situation. Watching him come apart is like being present at a masterclass.

Director Christopher Nolan does an outstanding job too, making the absolute most of the unusual Alaskan locations and environment to give us a sense of strangeness, suspense and menace.

The one person to let this film down is Robin Williams who plays a psycho and former friend of the murdered girl. Williams - who showed in One Hour Photo how restrained he could be if he tried - takes the easy way out in this movie and overdoes the oddness and scariness massively. At times he even steps into his old sentimentalist shoes, and his attempts at swearing seem stilted and ridiculous, further undermining the believability of his character. His one-to-one scenes with Pacino in particular are shining examples of the difference between good and bad acting.

Do not, however, let Williams put you off, for the rest of this movie is absolutely first class.

Insomnia is based on a brilliant Norwegian film of the same name and for once we have an instance of a Hollywood remake not ripping the essential heart from the original. This version remains remarkably true to the original and the shifting of setting from Norway to Alaska works beautifully, as both regions share a similarity of terrain and conditions.

Insomnia is a suspenseful movie, but not necessarily an exciting one. There are thrills to be had, but they are balanced with thought-provoking moral dilemmas and the development of character and relationships.

I highly recommend this film for its unusual setting, its atmospheric aura, its intelligence, and, most of all, for the best performance Pacino's given us ch
attering cinephiles for years.

Without Williams this would have been unquestionably a 5 star experience.

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