Neither Nolan..Nor Pacino

Rating: 6/10 (17 June 2011)

I had great expectations from Nolan and Pacino collaboration but those were never even acknowledged, let alone met by Insomnia. The film is neither a Pacino drama, nor a Nolan brainy thriller and in fact the props like insomnia and the Alaskan landscapes rather than the story itself, are what make the film bearable. Pacino, as we all know has got bigger teeth, but Nolan does not give him much to dig them into as he manages a meek film, its visual splendor and Pacino's intense, brooding performance notwithstanding.
Nolan's mark was conspicuous by its absence much to my chagrin as the story unfolded in a linear format, which was entirely unexpected. That was when I had a look at the credits and found that Nolan did not write this and he was just a director on this. Apart from Pacino, no one leaves a mark including Nolan. Robin Williams, after Good Will Hunting is particularly unconvincing (at least to me) in the role of a lousy writer while Hillary Swank was not needed and was never defined what she was supposed to do.
Dialogue was never one of Nolan's characteristic abilities, which was painfully evident with this film, as we never root for any of the lead characters. By the time of its denouement we no longer care what happens to anyone in the film. It is a pity that the Nolan-Pacino combination ended in something like this which is kind of fitting, since they were never masters in each other's genre. If not for Pacino and breathtaking cinematography which pops in rather inadvertently, this movie would be unable to sit through.