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Review by Frank Wilkins

With a cast consisting of three Academy Award winning actors and an Academy Award nominated director, the formula for making a successful movie should be as simple as pointing the camera at the set and yelling "Action!" Although the acting is on the mark and the direction is adequate, Insomnia doesn't quite engage the audience in a way that a movie with such a deep pool of talent should. Director Christopher Nolan (Memento) manages the talent well and gets top-notch performances from the actors, but where the talent lives up to the hype, the story doesn't.

Two Cracker Jack LAPD detectives, Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan), fly into a small Alaskan fishing village to investigate the beating death of a high school teenager whose killer puts aside his violent rage long enough to wash the victim's hair and trim her nails. At this point, the story begins to get very deliciously creepy and macabre, along the same lines as Silence of the Lambs. We learn, through a bit of dry and monotone dialogue, that the detectives have been reassigned, banished if you will, to Alaska to get away from an LAPD internal affairs investigation involving evidence planting. Hap is ready to cut a deal and doing so could jeopardize the career of the by-the-book Dormer as well. While interesting in the pulp fiction world, this premise simply becomes just another crime mystery looking for an identity in the celluloid world.

As Dormer and Hap enlist the services of the local yokel police force, including the beautiful Hilary Swank as Ellie Burr the gullible but inquisitive detective wannabe, a terrible accident happens during a pursuit of the murder suspect with guns a' blazin'. Dormer can't help but blame himself and is not sure how to answer when faced with the question of whether he meant to do it.

Set in the picturesque Alaskan community of Nightmute during the summer months when the sun never sets, Dormer finds himself unable to block out the light from the windows in his hotel room. Lying awake in his bed at night racked with guilt, he constantly plays and replays the tragedy through his mind. He spends his time taping the windows and stacking objects to block the sunlight as if he's also trying to blind himself from the guilt of the accident. The lack of sleep distorts his thoughts and melds the timeline. If ever an actor has "looked" the part, Pacino is that actor. With bags under his glassy eyes and a wrinkled, craggy face that blends into the harsh, glacier-covered environment, Pacino works through his scenes in a sleepy, film-noir type fashion that displays his masterful skills.

Dormer receives a 4 am phone call from the killer, a local author, who gets Dormer's attention instantly as he brings up the details of the accident that could only have been known by someone who was present. Dormer is forced to deal face-to-face with the killer (Robin Williams) or face the revelation of the incriminating details. I was immediately unimpressed with the killer's character. I would expect a killer who brutally beats a girl and then takes the time to wash her hair and trim her nails, to be a bit more disturbing and abnormal. Although Williams' performance was not lacking, his character was uninteresting. Can a brutal murderer be so normal? At this point the story begins to lose its touch with reality. It tries too hard to incorporate interesting plot twists and unexpected events that actually make it rather predictable and benign.

In spite of the star-studded cast and the breathtaking cinematography, Insomnia is plagued by predictability and a lack of individuality. We've seen this story before in a different setting and with different players. Many of the twists and changes of plot direction are foreseeable and unoriginal. Insomnia wants to be much more, but the story just won't open up and let it air out.

Frank Wilkins