Movie Review: Insomnia

Stars (Out of 10): 7

One Word Summary: Sleepy

Full Review:

   Insomnia is about two LAPD detectives sent to a small Alaskan town to find a serial killer, and so the cops back home can investigate them for fraud. When on his trail they're led into a rocky area surrounded by fog. When one LA detective shoots the other, he decides to frame it to look like the killer shot him. The killer witnesses everything and uses it to blackmail the cop to get off his case. It gets harder and harder for the LA cop to do his job when he stops being able to sleep.

    First things first... the plot is incredible. The movie would have been perfect had they just left the police plot alone and not added any of the sleep deprivation mumbo jumbo. I'm not stupid... I know that the insomnia set the movies tone, added a "film noire" flavor, and basically set it apart from most cop movies. But I think it slowed down the movie's pace, I felt like every time they started talking about his insomnia I wanted to go to sleep. You'd be watching a great movie, and then they'd just out of the blue cut to some blood dripping down, and Al Pacino would look tired. They kept on doing the same thing over and over. I liked the tone it set, but I think a movie's pace is more important than it's tone.

    Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hillary Swank... three Oscar winners in one movie, that's something to be proud of! They could all win another one for Insomnia! I was especially impressed by Robin William's performance. He is the most versatile actor on the planet! (Jim Carrey comes in second) He is hilarious when he wants to be, he's kind when he wants to be, and as we've seen in his last three movies now (Death to Smoochy, One Hour Photo, and this), he can be evil and freaky when he wants to be. I can honestly say, that you could put Robin Williams into any movie or any role and he would play the part better than 3/4 of his competition!

    One thing I enjoyed very much aboutInsomnia was its dialogue. In a movie like this you need good dialogue. I think the dialogue itself set a pretty dark tone.

    This movie getting a thumb up and a thumb down for one reason and one reason only. It was slow. The only bigger crime when making a movie, worse than being slow, is being confusing. Insomnia committed both. But I liked the confusion, it wasn't to much that you never figure it out, it was enough confusion that you had to think. I liked that!

    In conclusion, even though I didn't give Insomnia a thumb up, if you're willing to sit through the boredom to get to the GREAT plot... I commend you. Many critics are saying that this is one of the first Oscar contenders of the year, and it could be. There were so many great things in this film, but the few negatives stuck out!

Conclusion:

Yahoo! Movies Description:

Drama

A sleep-deprived detective is sent to a small Alaskan town to investigate the murder of a teenage girl. Forced into a psychological game of cat-and-mouse by the primary suspect, events escalate and the detective finds his own stability dangerously threatened.