Insomnia

Oh Christopher Nolan, you've brought me such joy for so long. Ever since I watched Batman Begins, I have enjoyed your films so freaking much.

I would say that, which the exception of The Following, which I haven't even properly watched because I fell asleep because that movie is incredibly dry and a little boring, I have loved every single one of Christopher Nolan's work. Mainly because I can always expect something in the film to be fascinating or thought provoking. Nolan has this great way of making films that are thought provoking but entertaining enough so that I'm not sitting through a movie like Primer... yikes.

In short, Nolan gives food for thought and dumbs it down a little bit for people like me.

Let's take a quick look back at Nolan's greatest work.

First you have Memento, which I have to re-watch soon because I think that might be my favorite Christopher Nolan film. Then you have the Batman franchise with The Prestige (another great) and Inception snuck in between. Then you have Interstellar. On top of that, he's an executive producer for my favorite superhero film today, Man of Steel, and is involved as an executive producer for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

But right before Batman Begins and after Memento, Nolan gave us a little film called Insomnia starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams. Its another film, like Good Morning Vietnam that came out after the tragic passing of Robin Williams. I put it on my list a while ago and I needed to watch it before it left Netflix...

And again, I'm glad I got this one before it left.

Insomnia is a crime thriller about a cop and his partner from Los Angeles going to Alaska to help out a murder investigation of a young girl. The two cops are under investigation from internal affairs over a previous case and there is tension between them as one (played by Martin Donavon) mentions he needs to come clean and get a deal from Internal Affairs. His partner, Will Dormer (played by Pacino) is afraid he will be the one who gets screwed if his partner takes a deal.

But the investigation continues and they believe they have who murdered this girl. They track him to a wooded area where in a pursuit, Dormer accidentally shoots and kills his partner.

Afraid of the backlash and consequences, Dormer decides to cover up the shooting and go as far as to tamper with evidence to make sure he is not blamed for the murder of his partner.

Pacino, like most cases, really brings it in this performance. Now when I say that, I mostly mean, he's playing Al Pacino. Its not a bad Al Pacino, I do feel his struggle and his conflict as he fights his conscience. However, I had a moment where I realized that Dormer could just be an older version of Pacino's character in Heat. Which I actually would be totally down with, but it doesn't exactly show range.

All that said, you can see the toll the cover up takes on Dormer as he does everything in his power to make sure the evidence does not point towards him.

And he almost gets away with it, until he gets a call from the killer of the girl saying he saw Dormer kill his partner.

Walter Finch (played by Robin Williams) is a writer in this remote Alaskan town. When his character comes in, it becomes not only a battle of wits, but an uneasy alliance.

Finch needs help from Dormer to get a patsy for the murder of the girl, and Dormer needs Finch to not tell anybody about his killing of his partner.

Williams gives a surprisingly chilling performance of a first time killer. The phone calls between him and Pacino are some of the best parts of the film just because Williams brings this really eerie performance.

When I was a kid and saw trailers for movies with Robin Williams in it where he was a bad guy, I could never believe it. He's just always been the upbeat comic character and suddenly he's a killer? But in this film, it really works. Finch is not your average serial killer but you can tell, given time, he could be. There's really a psychology to this guy and there's an uneasy alliance dealt between these two. Its great.

On top of all of that, Dormer is having trouble sleeping. The thing going on throughout the film is that its the time of season in Alaska where the sun does not go down. Therefore, Dormer is not able to get any sleep. This keeps on building and building until the climax where he's almost losing his mind due to the lack of sleep he's had throughout the film.

I suppose that's the hook of this movie. Inception was about dreams, Interstellar was about space travel, The Prestige was about magic, this movie is about sleep deprivation. And that's why I thought the movie was going to take a different turn throughout the film.

Now, being as this is a Nolan film, I really thought there was going to be some kind of twist, or that the movie was going to go in a totally different direction than I thought it was going to go near the end. On top of that, I thought the movie was going to have a thematic point that would be explained through lots and lots of exposition. Though I love almost everything Nolan has done, I am realizing that in more and more of his movies, he's putting these long winded speeches (often done by Michael Caine) about morality or some other theme. Nolan has become the king of exposition.

Insomnia is surprisingly very subtle with its message and its themes. That may be because the movie is adapted from a Norwegian film so Nolan didn't have as much creative control, but there's a part of me that actually really likes that.

I kind of like when Nolan has some boundaries and he is just focusing on directing rather than writing some long winded philosophical journey. The guy can direct straight forward crime thrillers and still give us a great movie.

Insomnia unfortunately is probably the least known of Nolan's films, (with the exception of The Following) and I personally think that's a little bit of a shame. Its straight forward but at the same time a very theme driven story. You can tell the guilt and the moral dilemma Pacino's character is facing. You can see the rationale of Robin William's character and his belief that he is not a murderer. You can feel the burden of this lie weighing on Pacino the entire time and the movie doesn't need the themes and morals to be explained, they just need to be acted.

This is probably a shorter review both because this movie is pretty straight forward and keeping in mind the fact that its 12:31 in the morning and I need to go to bed.

Insomnia, to me, is an incredibly underrated film. I won't say its my favorite Nolan film, but I definitely think it should be more appreciated than it is right now. You have great performances from Pacino and Williams, you see a side of Robin Williams not everyone gets to see, you get a compelling story and a subtle message. If you consider yourself a Nolan fan, you must see this one, just to confirm, yes it is better than The Following.

But those are my thoughts on Insomnia. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also shoot me a tweet and follow me @MovieSymposium on Twitter. Follow me and you can get updates on movie news and reviews.

I'll leave you with this. The people over at Screen Junkies did a bracket of Nolan's movies to decide which one is the best. Is it the one you thought it was? Enjoy!