Insomnia: Review By carl

A little while ago I came across a film on DVD called Memento. I hadn't even heard about this film before it's DVD release because it only did modestly at the box office, but the critics all raved about the film so I decided to give it a try.

I personally loved the film because it was one of the few films to have me genuinely confused, but to be honest this was only because of the films big gimmick. You see the film was played out backwards starting at the end and ending at the start, but this left me with the question about whether or not the Director would be able to confuse me at all with a traditional narrative. Then a few months ago I heard that he was going to helm a more traditional thriller and it would star Robin Williams as a psychopath. I hoped that now would be the time to find out but unfortunately Insomnia did not turn out like I expected at all.

You see in a perfect world nobody would know that Williams was playing the psycho at all. They should have left it with just the phone calls in the night, but in the end the hoped for confusion never happens because director Christopher Nolan doesn't even try to confuse you, instead he made a big deal about Williams playing the psycho and revealed him as the killer the first time he comes onto the screen. That's OK though because even without a confusing story full of plot twists Insomnia still has the makings of a classic movie. For a start it has 2 fantastic actors facing off in the form of Al Pacino (Heat, The Godfather) and Robin Williams (Awakenings, The Dead Poets Society), and both of these work well together.

Pacino who can sometimes go a little too far over the top has shown off his talent, giving a performance to rival the one he gave in Heat, and Williams who has gone too far into sentimentality lately gives the best performance of his career as the films killer. On top of that we have a genuinely well written film with no noticeable plot holes and an absolutely killer concept. This time the concept is that because of the investigation is in Alaska during a time of year where the sun doesn't set Pacino who comes from LA can't sleep, hence the name of the title. This is the area that provides the story with the tension that it needs due to the lack of any real plot twists, and once again they succeed in this area. So it confuses me a great deal when I realize that even though the film has all of the right ingredients, and even though the ingredients work so well, the film just doesn't work. You see Insomnia is one of those films that should work but doesn't. Even though there are no elements in the film that are bad it still manages to turn out dull, and no matter how much you discuss good acting and good writing if a film is dull then all of those area's are irrelevant.

Now I don't want you to think that I'm just bad mouthing a perfectly good film because it didn't have enough action. That's not the case as while I'll readily admit that the really slow movies like 'The Conversation' bore me, Insomnia shouldn't have, because it had more than enough action and enough drama in the story to give it a decent pace. Like I said I should have thought this film was a classic, yet even though before watching it I never had any really high expectations the film has still disappointed me. It's not Nolan's fault as he has done his job as the director well, the actors have done their jobs well, the writers have done their jobs well. Everyone has done their jobs well, but unfortunately Insomnia is just one of those films that turns out bad despite all of this. Shame really.