Insomnia

December 10, 2004

Rated: R Runtime: 118 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Insomnia is the second major movie from director Chris Nolan. His first effort was the critically acclaimed and totally unique film Memento. We are fans of that flick as well and looked forward to seeing what he could do here especially with Al Pacino in the starring role. The result is a solid, albeit unspectacular, effort.

Insomnia

Pacino plays Will Dormer, a detective from Los Angeles with a lot on his mind. Dormer, along with his partner, is under investigation by internal affairs in L.A. They are shipped off to Nightmute, Alaska to help with a murder investigation and get them out of the spotlight for a bit. Nightmute is a tiny town where nothing much happens including sunsets. They are far enough north that in the summer it is daylight 24 hours a day.

Dormer is tired and stressed before he even gets there. It gets much much worse for him. And to top it all off, he can’t sleep because the sun is shining into his room even at 3AM. We can’t tell you much more without spoiling the movie, a taboo here at Movies for Guys. Suffice to say this is a murder mystery with some very interesting twists.

Al does his usual excellent job. And you’d never know Nolan only has a couple of movies under his belt as a director. The scenes where Pacino’s character is dead tired and really starting to wig out are excellent. There’s a scene in the car, that everyone who has ever driven on a long trip will immediately relate to, it captures the feeling of nodding at the wheel perfectly.

The film has some gorgeous scenery, it is well acted and well directed. So what’s the problem you ask? The answer is the story. There’s no mystery, we know “whodunnit” pretty early in the movie. We’re just along for the ride to see how it all works out. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. For us, this time, it didn’t.

We would give Insomnia high marks if looking solely at the art of the film. But we rate our films based on how entertained we were. In that regard, it doesn’t fail, but it moves kinda slow and the suspence just is not there. We give this one 3 stars. We recommend seeing it, particularly if you’re a Pacino fan, but it can wait for DVD.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 3 Stars, Al Pacino, Hilary Swank, Martin Donovan, Nicky Katt, R, Robin Williams, Theatrical, Thriller