Like A Bad Dream

Rating: Null/10 (13 September 2006)

Will Dormer, an L.A. detective played by Al Pacino, goes north to Alaska to help solve a murder case, only to find that in the land of the midnight sun, he can't get any sleep. That can be a nuisance to anyone. But for an on-the-job policeman, it can be deadly.
It's a strange premise for a film, but one that has lots of potential. Unfortunately, in "Insomnia" (2002), that potential fails to solidify, owing to Pacino's acting, and a foggy, ambiguous plot that had me wondering if I was trapped in someone else's nightmare.
Dormer is not very likable. He has a craggy face. He keeps his mouth open too much. He has a scratchy voice that is annoying, and made worse by Pacino's tendency to whisper, or mumble, his lines. Dormer is a kind of Lt. Columbo, without the charm of Peter Falk.
And the film's plot is a mess. It is confusing and convoluted. There are scenes that don't make any sense. The script is devoid of humor. The music is irrelevant. The lighting is inappropriately dim for some scenes. And the editing compounds these problems. You get the feeling that they were trying to create an atmosphere comparable to what you find in "Se7en", an atmosphere suggestive of some unknown, lurking evil. What they did instead was merely make "Insomnia" hard to follow.
Except for the film's unique premise, and the gorgeous and well-photographed Alaskan scenery, "Insomnia" comes across as a bad dream. Maybe that was the intent.