Interesting Murder Mystery!

Rating: 7/10 (2 November 2002)

Contains Spoiler "Insomnia" is the story of two L.A. detectives who are "sent" to a small town in Alaska to help solve a grisly but methodical murder of a teen aged girl.
Detectives Will Denner (Al Pacino) and Farrell (Larry Holden) are under investigation by Internal Affairs, so their chief spirits them out of town to assist a small town police chief (Paul Dooley) in the above investigation. Officer Ellie Burr (Hillary Swank) is assigned to assist the detectives. Farrell in an effort to save his own skin tells Denner that he will in effect sell him out when they return home.
In pursuit of the murderer in a dense fog, Denner shoots and kills Farrell. He is not sure in his own mind whether or not the shooting was accidental or not. Complicating matters is the fact that because Denner is in Alaska at a time when there is 24 hours of daylight, he is unable to get any sleep.
To further complicate matters the murderer identifies himself to Denner as mystery writer Walter Finch (Robin Williams). It seems that Finch witnessed the shooting and is now threatening to blackmail Denner unless he backs off the case and lets someone else take the fall. Denner after ten days is becoming exhausted with little sleep and is unable to think clearly. Meanwhile Officer Burr is investigating the case on her own and comes up with some interesting findings.
The main part of the film is the cat and mouse game going on between the Pacino and Williams characters. Pacino is great as usual and it is interesting to see the portrayal of his character's gradual exhaustion due to insomnia. Williams, in a change of pace, doesn't appear until well into the story, but is very good as the creepy self-confessed killer. Swank has little to do to show her talents but makes the best of her role.
An interesting murder mystery.