Good moralistic crime drama

Rating: Null/10 (26 October 2002)

This is one of the best films of the year. It's about a cop (Al) who may be in some trouble in l.a. so is sent to alaska to investigate the murder of a teenage girl. there is an accidental killing of a cop, so a local cop (hilary swank) investigates it, so there are actually two investigations going on simultaneously. This is not a conventional hollywood cop thriller because the plot, while good, is not the focus, but rather the characters are. The plot serves as a function where the characters are forced to make important moral decisions that will change theri lives and define who they are as people. These moral dilemma's that the characters find themselves in is the focus of the film.
Nolan directed "Memento" which was very much a "surface" movie in that the style of the film was more important than the themes of the film (although the film did have some interesting transcendentalist themes). Whereas in "Insomnia" the style plays backburner to substance. This is not the kind of revolutionary film "Memento" was, but it will be remembered as an intelligent, well done thriller/drama.
Robin Williams gave a surprisingly good performance (I for one was not too impressed with his dramatic performance in "good will hunting")- he showed both that his character was just a chicken, and also basically without scruples, as he brought the murder investigation down to a game of wits. He was bad, true, but more "the bad guy next door," than an evil superman like say a hannibal lecter. Swank got across the innocence and intelligence of her young cop character, the only woman cop, trying to come off "one of the guys." Al Paccino made the insomnia believable, although he's played up this type of washed-up serious professional one too many times for me. Go see it, it's quite good.