Insomnia (2002 Remake) Review

The Norwegian original left its detective morally rotten and refused to redeem him. Nolan's version, made for a studio with Warner money and a Hillary Seitz script, softens that by making the fatal shot genuinely ambiguous and by giving the man a route back to decency. That is the compromise, and it costs the story its nerve. What Nolan gains is a cast. Al Pacino plays exhaustion rather than intensity for once, sagging and grey and blinking against a sun that never sets, and it is the last fully controlled performance he gave.

Robin Williams is quiet, reasonable and completely unsettling as a writer who talks about the killing as though it were a scheduling error, and the phone calls between them are the film's spine. Wally Pfister shoots the Alaskan light as a physical assault, all white glare and blackout curtains that do not work. Hilary Swank is stranded in a part written as an admiring mirror. It is a competent studio thriller lifted by two actors, which for Nolan is the anomaly.