The Greatest Anti-Sleeper Hit

Rating: 9/10 (22 August 2010)

Though Insomnia wasn't Robin Williams's first trip to the dark side, nor was it Al Pacino's first cop drama, it was, in fact, their best performances in their respectable roles as such.
I truly liked this movie a lot. It had elements of The Silence of the Lambs and the beauty of Alaska. No one could've played a sleep-deprived cop like Pacino. He already looks 80% asleep in most of his roles. Williams was superb as the incredibly un-clichéd antagonist. His character, writer Walter Finch, was smart, but not brilliant. He actually seemed like how normal people would react if they were, in fact, in his predicament. And Hilary Swank, well, she's been better in other movies, and she's no Marge Gunderson (played by Frances McDormand in Fargo.) Yet, she did what she could and was still entertaining.
That all said, the real stars of the movie were the fantastic script and scenery. Gorgeous locales that make you walk in their sleepwalking shoes. Thanks to the screenplay and backdrops, you could feel every ounce of pain that the Detective Will Dormer (Pacino) was feeling. Now, knowing his background and if he's really a good person, that'll take you a bit.
A young girl is killed in the town of no sundown in Alaska (this period of the year, that is) and L.A. Detectives Dormer and Eckhart (Donovan) are called up North to assist the wet-behind-the-ears Ellie Burr (Swank) in solving it. Ellie's ecstatic: Dormer's her hero; she's written papers on him and memorized some of his statements. She's also naïve, but not entirely stupid.
Apparently both Dormer & Eckhart had left L.A. in the nick of time as they were being investigated by Internal Affairs for some "wrong doing" in one of Dormer's cases. Up there, it's not necessarily smooth sailing as Dormer cannot sleep for more reasons than the sun won't go down. As they close in on the killer, mistakes are made, including a fatal one in which the real killer attaches onto.
This movie is not perfect, but it's a definite homage to the suspenseful mysteries of the past. Only, this time, it's directed masterfully by one of the greatest directors of all time, Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento.) It does have powerful performances, crisp cinematography, daring dialogue and really human characters that make this one of the most believable cat 'n mouse films to watch. SEE IT!