I’ve just come home from seeing Insomnia. Not a bad little film at all. Again Robin Williams putting in a rock solid performance and toeing it with Al Pacino one for one. Given the great job Pacino did of playing a cop who is slowly falling apart after not sleeping at all for days on end, that is saying quite a lot. I think this the first movie I’ve seen with Hilary Swank and I can’t believe she won an Oscar for playing a guy. She certainly does not rank low on the cute scale. Unfortunately she didn’t have much to do in the movie and felt a little underused.
Some good stuff from the director and the script. A particular stand out which set up everything you needed to know about the movie happens pretty early on. The two cops from LA have arrived in Alaska and are looking at the crime scene. They want to go and question the girls boyfriend, he is still in high school. So they ask the local cops to take them to the school then and there and they will pull the kid out of class. The sun is shining and its pretty bright. The local cops just look at them and one of them says “now, its 10…PM”. It stuck with me, from that point there was no night, no darkness. Simple as that.
While I enjoyed the movie, it was not a great movie. There were a couple of moments where it came close. If he had just gotten back on the plane to LA as I actually thought there was a chance of happening this movie would have shot up in my estimation. Worth seeing yes for sure, anything special; unfortunately not.