Insomnia | Review

Nolan’s thriller measures fairly well to the original.

How often does one get to see a film advertisement headlining the names of three Academy Award winning actors? Dreams do come true in Hollywood, especially for a guy named Christopher Nolan, whose name I stamped a little everywhere in my I-can’t-wait-to-see-what-this-guy-does-next part of my brain. Following his break-through indie everything in reverse hit of Memento-a film that gave Polaroid cameras a rebirth and took Nolan’s name off the starving artist’s list- comes a new and not necessarily improved version of the Scandinavian Erik Skjoldbjærg 1997 hit of Insomnia. I’d say more than 99% of the public that go and see the Pacino version will never have the chance to see the original, that’s a shame because the 1997 version is a pretty solid piece of work, from a director whose next film is the Christina Ricci acted and adaptation of the Elizabeth Wurtzel book, Prozac Nation.

Going into this film, I can’t help but compare the two, the contrasts begin with simple imagery and the scene selection for character description, but for the most part the juicy storyline remains intact. In the film’s opening credit sequences, Nolan’s intro gives us the setting of the Nordic white Alaskan landscape and the evident bright daylight whereas the original goes for an edgier, darker intro with a violent act and a dead body clean-up job. Skjoldbjærg’s noir look, which is very evident in the cinematography, is perhaps more suitable and more effective in giving a deeper detail to the feel of the film and gels perfectly with the protagonist eventual dilemma. But ultimately both film versions focus much of the attention on the plight of the protagonist, with Pacino in the U.S version and Stellan SkarsgÃ¥rd in the Norwegian version. Our very own Serpico/Tony Montana plays the high-profile cop with a reputation, who battles personal demons, too much sunlight and simply looks great at looking like shit, and doesn’t over-do the top of his voice screaming theatrics that have grown somewhat tiresome in his previous rolls. The cast rounds off with a sharp Hilary Swank (Boy’s Don’t Cry) and an intelligently devious Robin Williams (Death to Smoochy) who are great in their supporting roles.

The newer version does very little to drastically change the riveting storyline structure of the original- keeping the film’s skeleton pretty much intact all the way up to about the midway point of the film-with the wild card planting of the evidence sequence. This change in direction makes for a screenplay that gives the film a more elaborate cat and mouse game between the protagonist and the antagonist. This adds to the total run time of the film and the film winds up with a much meatier climatic finale. Sure, the final moments seems a little to Hollywood-ish, put it still manages to pull off a respectable-satisfying ending. Nolan’s take is just as entertaining as the original; it may not be the mentally challenging or the noir auteur-driven as his award winning last film and/or as stylish as the original, but despite this-the film is very much a story-driven psychological thriller that is still a rare cinematic treat where the subplots are just as interesting as the main plot. I thought that the whole dealing with no sleep factor was better treated in the original, but Nolan’s version comes off as a more edgy end of your seat thriller full of suspense.

Rating 3.5 stars