Insomnia ***
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Nikolaj Frobenius and Erik Skjoldbjærg (1997 screenplay); Hillary Seitz (Screenplay)
Starring: Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hillary Swank
Rated R (language, violence, brief nudity)
Sometimes, I wish that Robin Williams was still on the cocaine. Perhaps, if he were still messing with the nose candy, we would have been spared things like Patch Adams. This, however, is not one of those times. Robin Williams can act. He isn’t the clown who’s crying on the inside in this movie; he is a character.
Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) and Will Dormer (Pacino) are LAPD homicide detectives that are sent to Nightmute (how cool a name is that?), Alaska to help with a murder case. A 17-year-old girl was beaten to death, and left naked in a garbage dump. Ellie Burr (Swank) is one of the detectives assigned to the case. Ellie studied Dormer’s past cases while she was in the academy, and, early on, acts like an excited kid meeting her hero. Dormer seems put-off at first, but knows that she’s capable. In between looking for clues, Hap and Dormer discuss a situation within the LAPD – Internal Affairs has started looking very, very hard at some of the cases of their particular office within the force. Several of Hap and Dormer’s colleagues have been fingered on charges of evidence tampering, planting evidence, things like that. Part of the reason that the two detectives went north is so that some of the heat will come off of them. (In case you’re new to the cop drama genre, IA is bad. Cops are good.) Clues start pointing to mystery author Walter Finch (Williams), who lives nearby. Finch knows some things about Dormer, however. Not the least of which is that he hasn’t been able to sleep since arriving in Alaska. “At midnight, you’ll be at 6 days. That beats my record,” Finch tells Dormer at one point. The sun doesn’t set, and Dormer can’t adjust. To paraphrase a line from Fight Club, “When you can’t sleep, nothing is real anymore. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.” I can’t go into any more detail than that without spoiling everything.
As far as the story goes, it worked. I’d still like to see the original, just to see how many changes Hollywood made to it. Many films that come out of Scandanavia are incredibly moody, tense and affecting. While Nolan made some very good choices in the editing, I’d still like to see how it played out originally.
Nolan was a good choice as director. He seems to be fascinated by the displacement of people in time. His previous film, Memento, unfolded backwards. The main character was unable to form new memories, so cause-and-effect had no meaning for him. In Insomnia, Dormer seems to be affected in a similar way, except that instead of not forming memories, he’s not sure of reality. Again, to borrow from Fight Club, “Am I sleeping? Have I slept?”
Al Pacino is the reason to see this movie, hands down. First of all, he’s remembered how to use his inside voice. He hardly yells at all, which he seems to have been doing in every movie he’s done since Dick Tracy. Not once does he say “Hoo-ah!” Secondly, the haggard, detached, yet focused, performance he gives is similar to what he did in Dog Day Afternoon. If you haven’t seen that one, you really need to. Hillary Swank... She looked good, but I don’t think she was used to her full potential. As far as Robin Williams goes, he shows what he can do in one of his phone conversations with Dormer. You’ll know it when you see it. After seeing him here, I’m really looking forward to his performance in One Hour Photo.
This week, if you have kids, take them to see Attack of the Clones. I’d say take them to see Spirit, the new animated feature about the horse, but it just doesn’t look good to me. I watch lots of cartoons, so I think you can trust my judgement there. Avoid Enough. Please. Yes, Jennifer Lopez can act. But, come on – you already know what’s going to happen.
