An Anemic Remake

Rating: Null/10 (7 March 2003)

I don't know why Christopher Nolan bothered to do a remake of the original Insomnia, a Norwegian film about a morally ambivalent investigating detective, whose pragmatism made him an effective investigator, but also a little unprincipled. Brilliantly portrayed by Jonas Engström, the Norse version draws the viewer into the ethical relativism of the esteemed sleuth. It's a riveting performance.
On the trail of a child murderer, he makes a mistake, shooting his partner, friend, and long-time colleague by accident while chasing the killer in a thick fog. None of the police witnessed it, so he covers it up by saying that the killer did it. One can understand the reasoning: it was an honest mistake; and, the murderer is ultimately responsible, anyway. The detective creates a cover story for one simple reason: he's embarrassed. He could have easily told the truth, and it probably wouldn't have harmed him; but, in a moment of panic and discomposure, he lies, creating a plausible cover story, making it more difficult with every succeeding lie to come clean. It's believable. Not knowing that the accidental homicide was witnessed by the murderer, the tangled web he weaves starts becoming his own personal spider web, himself the captured fly.
The American version, by contrast, is much less interesting. Why? There's no moral ambivalence. In the American version, Will Dormer's moral dilemma is the same old crap about ends justifying the means. It's like taking a melody played gently on a flute, and blaring it out all gaudy and loud on a mighty Wurlitzer. It's not as convincing as the original film, because it moral subtlety that made the original so compelling. We sit there and say, `that's wrong,' instead of sitting on the edge of our seats and saying, `it may be wrong, but it's understandable.' The ethical pragmatism of the investigating detective in the original is what gave it its edge, its grit, its dramatic tension, its cachet. Toward the end of the remake, I started to feel as drowsy as the sleepless detective.
If you want to see Insomnia, rent the original version, not its eviscerated copy.