"I'm not telling anyone anything. We're partners on this."

Rating: 7/10 (18 December 2019)

I think the death of Will Dormer's (Al Pacino) partner, Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) could have been made more ambiguous with a bit more clever writing. Instead, we're pretty much convinced by Dormer's motivation to get Eckhart out of the way due to a pending Internal Affairs investigation back in L.A. The finale confirms it when Dormer advises Detective Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank) - "Don't lose your way" - at the point she was willing to cut him a break with the death of murder suspect Walter Finch (Robin Williams). We know early on that Dormer was a dirty cop, but keeping the viewer in the dark about his shooting of Hap would have made for a darker, more deeply psychological thriller.
With that, the set up for the story was pretty good, and the way Dormer used his vast background and experience to sniff out Walter Finch for the murder of Kay Connell was exemplary police work. But you immediately knew he was crooked with the switching of the bullet from Finch's discarded weapon, with the one that could have 'accidentally' killed his partner. If the seasoned detective had been up front and admitted he shot Hap, it would certainly have looked bad, but I think the accident argument could have been pulled off. At least in Nightmute, Alaska; back home the suspicions of his superior would have been raised.
I was curious about the location of this story, so I looked it up, and in fact there is a Nightmute, Alaska. During the 2010 census it had a population of two hundred eighty. Not too much trouble to narrow down who might have been a murderer in such a small town, and with this story we got two for the price of one. Dormer's insomnia hadn't seen nothing yet.