I Stayed Awake.

Rating: 7/10 (9 June 2015)

Insomnia (2002): Dir: Christopher Nolan / Cast: Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank, Martin Donovan, Maura Tierney: Thriller about the robbing of one's energy through painful circumstances. Al Pacino plays a police detective summoned to a small Alaska town to investigate the murder of a teenage girl. A suspect descends into the thick fog where Pacino accidentally kills his partner. This leads to sleepless guilt and an eventual encounter with the murder suspect who witnessed the incident thus placing him in a difficult position. Director Christopher Nolan previously made intriguing mind bending Memento. Here he uses fog and lighting to indicate Pacino's condition. Pacino is convincing as a man exhausted by guilt and weariness. Is that enough for consequences? Nolan never requests an answer. Robin Williams is brilliant as a psychotic arguing his own reasoning. Is he and Pacino practically within the same position of guilt? If so, then only one feels it while the other suffers it. Hilary Swank's role as a female cop is cardboard and seems only placed there to provide a major female character. She does nothing to move the narrative except provide useless clichÃ©s. Martin Donovan appears briefly as Pacino's ill fated partner. Maura Tierney is also featured as a hotel owner but the role is another flimsy supporting type. Endurance of guilt robs its victims of sleep, sanity and eventually life. Score: 7 / 10