vanilla ice-cream on white bread

Rating: 4/10 (19 October 2002)

You Have Got To Be Kidding! How could so many intelligent movie lovers be sucked into rating this film so highly. The IMDb staff should be ashamed for falling for the "star-power" and credentials involved in this disaster.
At best, Insomnia is predictable, uninteresting, emotionally flat (except for Pacino's performance - which seemed totally out of place among such boring bland and uninteresting performances). Robin Williams is not the slightest bit convincing as a psychotic author/murderer. Swank's character was every bit as flat and lifeless as the rest. Predictable, boring, and thoroughly forgettable. There was surprisingly little emotion (anger, betrayal, bitterness, sorrow, depression, whatever) conveyed as she witnessed the fall of her hero. The plot is given away so soon that the only tension created in the film is Pacino's insomnia - which makes this film as interesting, gripping, and engaging as actually having insomnia.
This is definitely not a "Thriller". There was no suspense throughout the whole movie. I saw it twice and waited for it - the music told me it was supposed to be there but film I saw was anticlimactic.
I have to give some credit to whoever tried to save this story by throwing in the "good cop makes a mistake"/cover-up type subplot. It was almost interesting enough to watch Pacino's character wrestle with the white nights and a crippling conscience. But then those other cardboard characters would interrupt and turn the plot focus to into vanilla ice-cream on white bread.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love Robin Williams and Hillary Swank. They are extremely talented and I would probably make a point to see any movie they are in. Memento is a landmark film in independent cinema - I loved it! They all deserve the awards they received for those specific films. BUT, the ugly fact is that, despite the talent and "star-power", they made a bad movie together. For what ever reasons they didn't deliver performances worthy of their best work. It happens to the best. My problem is with the reviewers, critics, and educated movie buffs who ate this vanilla ice-cream on white bread and called it gourmet cuisine - just because of the names in the credits and the hardware on their mantles. Shame on you all.