Starring Al Pacino

Rating: 8/10 (1 August 2010)

With Little Al topping the leaderboard no movie is ever gonna be a dud. And once again he does his stuff. The movie has an unusual mix of leads, with Pacino playing a seriously flawed cop who shoots his partner in a way that may or may not be accidental. He then tries to cover it up - which clearly is deliberate. Unfortunately, the villain - this time played by stereotypic nice-guy Robin Williams - sees him do it, and a curious relationship of mutual secrecy bonds between them. Williams does the creepy-psycho thing so well I'm surprised he hasn't been called upon to do it more often. Here, he plays vulnerability with an oleaginous edge that is enough to make you shudder. When not murdering, he's a crime-writer; so he knows all about crime. Hilary Swank plays an Alaskan rookie detective. She brings a nice mix of trust and suspicion to her role.
Most of the action is set in big old Alaska during the time of midnight sun. Hence the title of the movie - Pacino's detective can't sleep in the endless light. Quite why is unclear. They have pharmacies up there. And a good shot of local red-eye will send any weary soul to the sack. Certainly I never experienced any problems.
It's a decent if rather formulaic who-done-it, which we soon know. Then it becomes a psychological thriller. We've seen it all before. Flawed cop, flawed villain; one means to be good but fails, the other means to be bad and succeeds. The rest is dressing. There's some nice views of Alaska's big outdoors, but even here a lot more could have been done. Greater use could have been made of the tremendous scenery to emphasise the cop's sense of isolation and the littleness of his purpose. An encounter or two with wildlife would have contrasted with human aggression, and so on.
Still, it's a solid work with interesting cast. I thought the clumsy shoot-out at the end a bit of an anti-climax after so much intellectual scheming. But there you go.
Definitely worth a watch, but not exactly collectible.