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Review: Insomnia
Far from home, subject to the endless sunlight of the Alaskan winter, Pacino (Detective Will Dormer) is drawn into a bleak, clever moral thriller. You have to pay careful attention to this movie, and even if you do, you'll end up doubting yourself, much as Pacino does. Against the backdrop of Spider-man and Clones and all the attendant hype, this is an almost refreshingly simple movie. It's all about acting and plot.
Pacino is up there because an old pal is running a tiny Alaskan police department, in over its collective head after a young girl is brutally and sadistically murdered. Pacino swaggers in, spotting all of the things the locals have missed, and is stunned and enraged to learn from his partner Martin Donovan (who plays LA Det. Hap Eckhart) that Hap is about to fess up to IA about various past wrongdoing, including Dormer's having planted fake evidence to catch a child-killer. This testimony will result in any number of killers going free, including the child-killer. It will also end Dormer's career.
Soon after, Hap is shot while the two are setting a trap for the local killer. This is really the heart of the movie -- a searing, twisting and turning moral agony for Dormer who, driven nearly mad by the insomnia he experiences in the long Alaskan day, tries, along with local police novice Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank) to understand what has happened, and what ought to be done about it. The fact that it isn't clear -- to him or to us -- what happened to Hap -- gives the movie a taut, gripping edge. Pacino has a tendency to overplay roles sometimes -- as in Heat -- but here, he is at perfect pitch. It's a knockout performance.
Christopher Nolan also does an amazing job of using Alaska as a backdrop from the opening scene, almost as a character. There is one stunning shot after another, putting the story into a particular context. Taking an embittered, wise-ass LA cop and putting him in this misty, eerie setting is a masterstroke, and Nolan makes the most of it. Day by day, Pacino becomes more disoriented fatigued and confused. He also is taunted by Walter Finch, the chief suspect in the local killing, and a creepy psycho who tries to blackmail Dormer into dropping the investigation, or steering it in another direction. Finch claims to have evidence against Dormer regarding Hap's shooting, and the two of them begin a cat-and-mouse game you know can't have a happy outcome.
Williams's doesn't seem to quite pull this off. He isn't creepy enough here -- think John Malkovich or Jeremy Irons. He doesn't get under your skin quite the way he ought to. But that's the only significant flaw in the summer's best thriller by far -- also a refreshing change of pace from the mega-movies and their marketing tie-ins. This is a psychological drama, a portrait beautifully rendered by a master actor. There isn't an explosion, thundering army, or special affect in it. Just a dark, powerful story about life, reality and hard choices, along with some amazing acting, and some of the best cinematography you'll see in a while.
If you like this film, please go see the original film which this is based on. http://us.imdb.com/Title?0119375 [Imdb]. A much better film.
DamnKatz said:
This is really the heart of the movie -- a searing, twisting and turning moral agony for Dormer who, driven nearly mad by the insomnia he experiences in the long Alaskan day, tries, along with local police novice Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank) to understand what has happened, and what ought to be done about it. The fact that it isn't clear -- to him or to us -- what happened to Hap -- gives the movie a taut, gripping edge.
It is incredibly clear and a very important part of the movie that Dormer DID shoot Hap. Any doubt as to whether Dormer shot Hap makes the second half of the film make no sense at all. This is NOT what gives the movie a taut, gripping edge. The fact that it IS clear and it is used against Dormer is what gives it a taut, gripping edge.
Does Katz see these movies and then do a write-up on the drive home so he doesn't take away from his pr0n time at his desk? Glaring mistake Jon...
It was a good movie tho... 3 out of 4
Far from home, subject to the endless sunlight of the Alaskan winter
I think its SUMMER when the globe tilts that way.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
I've actually seen this twice. Had to see it the other night because my father wanted to see it for his birthday and drove 150 miles to my house and I didn't want to tell him that I'd seen it already. Doh!
When I saw this at first, I was convinced that Williams wasn't going to be the one to play this role. As a friend says, he plays the idiot manchild all too well. I watch it the first time with the belief that he CAN'T play a serious role without screwing it up and kept waiting for him to go into some Aladin style adlib crap. It ruined it a little because I kept waiting for it and it never happened. It was only after the movie was over that I realized he did well in the role.
Seeing the film a second time, and I'm not sure why films like this hide the spoiler...its not like I've seen any film in the mainstream theatres that I didn't know what the outcome would be just from the previews alone. Noting that, seeing it a second time didn't ruin the supprise of the movie. It instead allowed me to focus on the acting, which as was said earlier IS the draw for this movie. Knowing Williams wasn't going to head into the Idiot Manchild routine, I saw it in another light. He really was a good actor.
Without giving away too much of the 'plot', Williams plays a man that commits cold blooded murder in the heat of 'passion'. He is an everyman, a sort of a slashdot geek that just snapped. Subsistute a loner book author for loner computer geek and ya get the idea'r. He is rebuffed and laughed at and snaps. By the time he recovers, its done and has to do something about it. His role wasn't to be a creepy guy...it was supposed to be a misunderstood loner that wanted to be loved by someone and accepted by the general populace and fails at all of this. Not creepy except because of circumstances. Creepy in the way that the guy that wears the trenchcoat in the computer lab in the middle of a dry summer in the same means a child would bring his favorite blanket with him everywhere.
If you look at it in that sense, Williams is still a manchild, not fully socially developed and reacting badly to situations that don't go the way he expected it to go. He is a little pathetic but also a semisympathetic character and he plays his role well.
clif marsiglio
sonikmatter
Williams's doesn't seem to quite pull this off. He isn't creepy enough here -- think John Malkovich or Jeremy Irons. He doesn't get under your skin quite the way he ought to.
I actually thought this was a nice touch. Ever since Silence of the Lambs, criminals seem to be completely over the top and without any sort of pity. Finch tries to get Dormer to believe his telling of the story, and that's impossible if we don't think he's human.
Towards the end of the movie (without giving too much away) Dormer might have to cooperate with Finch. The audience wouldn't stomach this if Robin Williams wasn't someone who seemed like a down-to-Earth guy who just got in a bad situation. I think the comparison with Dormer's situtation is the key here; Dormer is trying to convince himself that Finch isn't such a bad guy.
At the end of the film, however, Williams is pretty damn scary. He's mean, he's creepy, and he kicks some ass. I thought it was an excellent film, and dare I say, better than the original.
But then again, I was forced to see the original in film class next to two stupid people making out and in front of a big snoring football jock.
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I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
And if you do go to Alaska, you may be disappointed - "Insomnia" was filmed in British Columbia.
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Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman