A good movie but who wrote that lousy ending?

Rating: 8/10 (1 June 2002)

Make no mistake, Insomnia is a pretty good movie. It has a good story and a nice pace. Al Pacino, of course, is one of the greatest actors of all time and can always be counted on for an enjoyable performance. Just as pleasing is Robin Williams who absolutely holds his own opposite Pacino. I have always liked Robin Williams as a comedian and his more recent roles in movies such as Good Will Hunting, What Dreams May Come and Bicentennial Man are quickly establishing him as a talented dramatic actor, as well. One of the things that made this movie a treat was the great chemistry between Williams's Walter Finch and Pacino's Will Dormer. Both characters are utterly believable in their roles and they play off one another quite well.
The other performances range from passable to quite good. Hillary Swank gave a decent performance as Ellie Burr, a stars-in-her-eyes admirer of Pacino's character and Jonathan Jackson gave a surprisingly good if somewhat under-written performance as Randy Stetz.
The main plot is entertaining and interesting and is helped along by the "did Will Dormer murder his partner" sub-plot.
No movie is perfect and Insomnia has its flaws. One is the use of the "spinning moving camera" that seems to be gaining popularity in modern film. I have a strong suspicion that this is used to avoid having to pay people to choreograph the action scenes. The camera gets right in on where the action is happening and then moves around wildly while the characters on screen grunt and jump about. Very annoying. If you want a fight or a foot chase, please let us see what is going on. Fortunately, Insomnia makes sparing use of this technique but it is present. Also, the film spends a little too much time convincing us of how tired Dormer is. The show him tossing and turning in bed, hallucinating and sweating but it isn't very believable. He has supposedly been awake for six days straight but the only real effect on his actions is that he goes around looking sleepy all the time.
** Warning: Minor spoiler(s) ahead **
Sadly, the single worst thing about this movie is the ending. It's as if the producers decided at the last minute to fire the writing staff and hire a graduate from the Hollywood School of Schmaltzy and Nonsensical Endings. Ellie is supposed to visit the bad guy (who she does not know is the bad guy) to pick up some letters from the deceased girl. So far so good. However, when she gets there, the bad guy clocks her on her dome and drags her to the back room. Where he leaves her. Alone. And not very well secured.
This entire plot development is lame and unnecessary. the protagonist (Pacino) already has PLENTY of motivation to go back to the killer's cabin and this twist does nothing to further the story. The bad guy has spent an entire movie craftily manipulating the police and casting suspicion on someone else. The police have totally bought it and have the person they think is guilty under lock and key at the jail. The bad guy is in the clear, so what does he do? He attacks a cop who everyone in the entire police department know has gone to see him. The excuse for this idiotic behavior? She saw the dead girl's dress in his cabin. However, the only reason she saw the dress was because the bad guy opened the drawer right in front of her and then left it open while he wandered around the room.
I like the movie, so I didn't go out of my way to make that last bit sound too bad, but it is. However, it pales in comparison to the weak and contemptible way in which this movie's writers resolve all the sub-plots and issues revolving around Al Pacino's character. They spend a whole movie building intrigue around Will Dormer; his past cases, his problems with Internal Affairs and whether or not he murdered his partner. Then, in the last two minutes of the movie they dispose of all those problems in the most pathetically convenient way imaginable. I cannot begin to tell you how unsatisfying the ending of this movie is. It almost ruins an otherwise very enjoyable film.
All in all, I am not sad that I spent time and money to see this film, but I am almost angry at the filmmakers for the disrespect they show for the viewer in the film's resolution.
6/10 because of the lame last five minutes of the movie. 8/10 if the ending doesn't bother you.