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Film Review: InsomniaAl Pacino and Robin Williams Play Cat and Mouse in AlaskaA cop suffering from insomnia pursues a killer in a small Alaskan town.
Two Los Angeles detectives, Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and his partner Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) are sent to Nightmute, Alaska (the town is fictional) to help the local police investigate the death of a 17 year old girl. One of the local officers, Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank) greets them as they land. Both Dormer and Eckhart are uneasy because of an internal affairs investigation within their own police unit back in L.A., and the stability of their careers is in jeopardy. But the business at hand requires immediate attention. There's a murderer on the loose. Dormer, his partner and several officers from Nightmute have the murder suspect cornered at a secluded cabin beside a rocky beach. He easily eludes them in a thick fog and in the confusion, Dormer accidentally shoots Hap in the chest and kills him. The sleepless nights begin for Dormer after Hap's death. Nightmute's twenty four hour daylight make it impossible for him to rest, and as he goes for several consecutive nights without sleeping, his sanity begins to erode as physical exhaustion and the guilt of killing Hap catch up with him. Robin Williams plays Walter Finch, an author of police mysteries and the real killer of the teenager. Williams, in one of his very few bad guy roles, does an excellent job of playing the role of a deranged killer who neatly rationalizes his actions and almost convinces Dormer to help him frame an innocent man for the crime. Do that, he says, and you'll go back to L.A. with your reputation intact, and no one will ask any more questions about the death of your partner. Case closed. Not quite. Dormer now has a difficult decision to make. Does he let the wrong man go to prison, even though his conscience might never recover? Or does he put the real killer behind bars? Ellie Burr has been handling the investigation of Det. Eckhart's death on her own, and finds out that Finch didn't shoot him at all. In the final scene, where once again Finch is trying to escape, Dormer confesses to Ellie that he did in fact shoot Hap, but whether it was on purpose or by accident he's not sure. He's too tired to give a definite answer one way or another. After killing Finch, Dormer is himself mortally wounded, and his last words are "Let me sleep." The film was shot on location in Alaska and at various locations in British Columbia, Canada.
The copyright of the article Film Review: Insomnia in Film Dramas is owned by Scott Hayden. Permission to republish Film Review: Insomnia in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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