PulpLit.net

Insomnia

Insomnia will keep you up at night.

Director Christopher Nolan, the man who brought us last year's indie hit Memento, has created a film that wraps its tendrils around the viewer?s brain, dredging up primal fears and refusing to let go long after you?ve left the theater. Equal parts morality play and thriller, the film is an enticing exercise in film noir and proves that not all summer releases require the brain be checked at the door (though considering how this film preys upon the psyche, doing so may be a wise precaution).

The film opens steeped in style and drenched in atmosphere. Against haunting shots of desolate Alaskan wilderness, a single prop plane moves across the sky, edging precariously over jagged peaks whose brilliant glacial hues mask their danger. This plane carries two fish out of water, hot-shot Los Angeles homicide detectives Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan). These longtime partners have been summoned by a former colleague (Paul Dooley) to investigate the murder of a high school girl. The invitation to strut his street-honed smarts and impress the locals is a convenient break for Dormer, who is fleeing a pressing Internal Affairs investigation back home. Dormer descends into this alien landscape, and what begins as a flashy police procedural quickly evolves into several torturous days of reckoning.

Insomnia is a remake of a 1997 Norwegian thriller. Apart from a change in locale and a few character alterations and substitutions, the new film echoes the original film in both style and substance. Rather than coming off as an unabashed attempt to bastardize a foreign film for domestic profitability, translating difficult dialects into something Americans can better understand and identify with, the remake is a rare example of a film that finds inspiration in its prior source while offering its own unique contributions. Nolan approaches the material as an accomplished composer might approach a classic symphony, adding his own delicate shadings to the proceedings. What emerges is both a skillful homage and a new masterwork.

The original film and the remake both share a jaw-dropping plot twist. Unlike the obligatory last minute twist that post-Sixth Sense seems to accompany every new thriller and Law & Order episode (cue gravel-throated announcer?s voice ?and an ending you won?t see coming?? which of course means you will), Insomnia?s story takes a dark turn roughly 45 minutes in. To reveal what happens would spoil everything. What can be said is that as Pacino?s Dormer edges closer to capturing this mysterious killer, an event occurs that places hunter and prey on the same plane; cop and quarry become dual edges of the same sword.

In addition to setting the stage with a compelling narrative, Nolan and screenwriter Hillary Seitz apply a twist of the screw by relocating the setting from the misty shores of Norway to the barren landscape of Northern Alaska, land of the midnight sun. As Dormer learns quickly, during the late spring and summer months the sun never sets in the town of Nightmute. As the tale unfolds and Dormer finds himself further entangled in the machinations of a clever killer, his psyche begins to shrink from the glaring northern exposure.

Nolan seizes the opportunity to mine the darkness embedded in a town bathed in bright light. In Memento he was working with a gimmick. The flawed hero of that film was afflicted with short-term memory loss, granting him the inability to create new memories. As he sought the killer of his wife, he resorted to Polaroids and tattoos to create a full body narrative of his quest. As if that weren?t enough, Nolan edited that film?s continuity backward, so that we began at the end and ended at the beginning, thus placing the viewer in the same plight as the hero, unable to rely upon experience and memory.
While Insomnia, with its white nights and titular affliction, may seem to be walking familiar grounds, Nolan doesn?t use these elements as a crutch. The film is told straight, beginning with Dormer?s arrival and ending exactly where the moral compass points. While boasting some surprises, the film plays out to a conclusion that a rational mind might anticipate. Yet knowing what?s coming doesn?t make the experience any less harrowing.

Over the past decade, the once great Pacino, like his colleague Robert DeNiro, has crossed the line into caricature with greater frequency. For every Heat, there?s a Scent of a Woman (?Huahhhh!!!?) In Insomnia, Pacino turns in a bravura performance. The strains of guilt weigh heavy on his face. From moment to moment, he seems ready to either explode into violence or implode in self-defeat. His character has built a career upon cleansing the world of crime; now he begins to question on which side his tactics have landed him. Is he an angel of justice or a fallen one? In Nightmute there are no shadows to hide in. With the sun blazing and a mystery occupying every waking thought - haunted by his transgressions, both past and present - Dormer finds sleep fleeting. With weariness occupying prime real estate upon his countenance, Dormer scratches at salvation from his homemade hell on Earth. This salvation may be within his grasp. There?s still a killer out there in the Alaskan hinterland, and Dormer has a job to do.

Roughly halfway through the film, we meet that killer. Walter Finch (Robin Williams) a hack writer pounding out detective novels as consolation for failed police aspirations, is Dormer?s quarry. Having stumbled upon information that could implicate Dormer and challenge his current investigation, he reaches out to Dormer with a Faustian deal. Both men can help each other out of their respective jams and get on with their lives. In Finch, Williams portrays everyday menace convincingly.

There?s a rich cinematic history of comics turning in surprising dark, dramatic performances; the so-called tears of a clown. Williams has waded in this territory before in films such as Good Will Hunting and The Fisher King, but never have I seen him tread such deep, dark waters. Though he boasts sparse screen time in comparison to Pacino, his Finch is an omnipresent force throughout the picture. We don?t lay eyes upon Finch until a good hour into the movie, but we?ve felt him breathing down our necks the entire time. His performance is chilling in its normalcy. Finch is an average man who has succumbed to a brief bout of madness and found his way back to sanity. Granted, he?s hell-bent on erasing his mistakes and will shed more blood in order to restore normalcy, but compared to a Hannibal Lecter, he?s one of us. Williams subtly pounds that point home.

Williams? career trajectory seems to fluctuate from soft family comedies to more fertile dramatic ground. As a comedian, his style has grown more grating over the years. His antic Improv routine has grown tiresome, yet that doesn?t prevent him from launching into the same old Ethel Merman as Gangsta? Rapper on the Letterman show ad nauseum. Much like Jim Carrey, Williams now seems more at home amidst the dramatic. His face has aged and weathered over the years, which aids him in painting a portrait of a man whose bright view of life was squelched somewhere over the years. His smile has creased, barely able to contain his pain. I prefer this darker Williams. In a key confessional, where he meets Pacino?s pursuer face-to-face for the first time, Finch recalls a childhood memory of his first encounter with a police officer. Speaking reverently of the awe with which he viewed this man of the law, standing tall in his crisp, pressed uniform, one senses his enchantment that shrouds this fateful encounter with a world-weary cop. It?s a great scene capped with an even greater moment, where the camera holds on Williams? illicit offer to Pacino and Pacino?s desperate acceptance.

This film is about nuance and performance. Capping the trio of Oscar winners, Hilary Swank impresses in her role as Ellie Burr, a local police neophyte drawn into the investigation. Her character is an up-and-coming cop mired in the daily grind of small town misdemeanors. Face-to-face with her hero, Dormer, whose cases she studied at the academy, Burr relishes the opportunity to learn from a mentor. We?ve seen this kind of character before, but the screenplay and particularly Swank lend it greater urgency. Burr becomes the moral center of this play. Swank plays this character as immensely likeable and fiercely intelligent. This performance ranks as one of her best.

As the film hurtles toward its conclusion it does slip into formula briefly with a standard (albeit brutal) shootout. All this action-flick rhetoric is redeemed in the film?s final shots as Dormer confronts his mistakes. In light of all that we have learned, the final line of dialogue in the film, spoken by Dormer to Burr, resonates powerfully.

A smart script, nicely etched performances all around, evocative cinematography and confident direction by Christopher Nolan all contribute to a film that stands as a refreshing viewing alternative to the sultry summer days of popcorn cinema. The last few years have seen the release of several excellent thrillers such as the aforementioned Memento and The Sixth Sense; Insomnia effortlessly stakes its claim among the best.