Insomnia 2002

Thriller

Insomnia - 2002 featuring Al Pacino, Hillary Swaink & Robin Williams.

A teenage girl has been found in a small quiet town of Alaska, murdered and left at the town's waste facility. Police of the small-town invite robbery and homicide detectives in to assist them with the investigation.

Al Pacino plays Will Dormer, who is currently under investigation from Internal Affairs for conspiring and contaminating evidence on a previous case he was working. Himself and his partner Hap Eckhart, played by Martin Donevan, accept the invitation to the small fishing town. The sun is always up, and the atmosphere never goes dark in the evening at nighttime, because of the season. The detectives arrive then want to be taken over to the dead girl's house. Detective Dormer wants to follow a lead and question the girl's boyfriend at school. Hillary Swaink plays Ellie Burr, an emerging detective within her local town's police force. Ellie reminds Will that it is 10 o'clock at night and that they are in the season when it doesn't get dark.

The detectives view the girl's body and notice that her hair has been washed, and her toenails and fingernails have been clipped by the killer. The hunt is on, but the local law enforcement hasn't got any leads, they are following the experience that the two detectives bring. The girl's school bag is found, and the police want to set a trap for the killer. They look for clues in the girl's backpack, then appeal to the public for help finding her school bag. This tactic is used to draw the killer out.

Back at the place of lodging the detectives are staying, Will finds it difficult to sleep. I would say that this is where the movie gets its name from. Will's room looks lit up still with the blinds down and he finds it hard to fall asleep and stay asleep. In my personal opinion, if the hotel knows that the daylight period is seasonal and lasts a long time, then why wouldn't they invest in block-out blinds or an alternative to block out the sun light for their customers.

Will's lack of sleep and insomnia later becomes an impairment for him with following the case. At the start I saw Will as an experienced detective that would "nail the bad guy." The kind that would come in, catch the killer and bring him to justice. We don't see that; however, we do see Will slowly start to lose his credibility as a detective. He isn't honest with himself and his team, and it affects the way the investigation is lead and carried out.

We later learn that the killer is Walter Finch, an Alaskan writer, played by Robin Williams. Will and Walter cross paths and Will reveals to us he 'cuts corners' as a detective. Ellie, the uprising detective, shows that she works the clues and follows the evidence. Towards the end she learns that Will has been concealing things which affected the investigation.

There was a part where Walter was trying to justify him killing the teenage girl, as an accident. You do have some remorse or doubt about Walter's intentions of befriending the teenage girl and killing her, but Robin Williams plays the character well to show that he is a calculated psychopath that had every intention of harming the girl.

In the final scenes of the movie Ellie goes to Walter's cabin to pick up letters from the teenage girl. Ellie goes alone and quickly realises the danger she is in. Will goes to the cabin. I'm not sure if he realises that Walter is going to hurt Ellie or if Will needs to know where the teenage girl was murdered, and where Walter would have had the chance to preserve her body before dumping it. On the way there, Will's Insomnia affects his ability to focus and drive.

Towards the end of the movie, Will gets shot and Ellie is holding him. She pulls out a bullet that she found at the scene and was going to throw it into the lake. Will stops her and encourages her to not let little habits make her a bad cop.

I enjoyed watching the movie, as I had never seen it before, but I wasn't really a fan of it. I did think if Walter didn't reveal himself as the killer to Ellie, would he get away with murder and would he have had killed Ellie if Will didn't show up? I think that Walter was just getting started as a killer and I think that he would have continued if Will didn't arrive in time.