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Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
A fairly close remake of an outstanding Norwegian movie of the same name, Insomnia is director Christopher Nolan's follow-up to his breakthrough movie Memento. It's very much the sort of project that seems designed to be a stepping-stone from independent glory to the Hollywood A-list status. It has the right subject matter, stars (Al Pacino, Robin Williams), supporting cast (Hilary Swank, Martin Donovan), an audience-friendly intellectual thriller format and enough bizarre cinematic ideas to allow for directorial bravura.
Evading the heat of an Internal Affairs investigation, Los Angeles hotshot homicide cop Dormer (Pacino) flies north to Alaska to dig into the murder of a local girl--but a botched trap for the killer leads to a foggy shoot-out that goes wrong. This leads to an alliance between the cop and the killer, who offers Dorma a nasty bargain. Making the situation worse is the fact that Dormer can't sleep, his body clock thrown off by the 24-hour thin sunlight of the town of Nightmute, which affords Pacino a chance to crawl deeply inside a flawed hero on the point of cracking up. There's one terrific chase scene, with two clumsy middle-aged guys, leading to an intense and memorable peril. It slightly over-eggs the original story, with a Hollywooden tinge, but it's still compelling, grown-up drama. --Kim Newman
On the DVD: Insomnia offers a wealth of DVD special features, most of which can be found inside the "Production Diaries", including a splendid making-of featurette filled with great cinematography and a haunting soundtrack. There is also an interesting documentary short on insomnia the condition, relating the problems sleep deprivation can cause. The commentaries take a new angle by asking relevant cast and crew members to comment on a scene specific to them rather than listening to the whole film with a commentary, which is refreshing and a concise way of providing the information. --Nikki Disney
Special Features
Commentary with Director Christopher Nolan
Commentary with Cast & Crew
180 degrees: A conversation with Christopher Nolan and Al Pacino
Day & Night: The making of Insomnia
In the Fog: with Wally Pfister
In the Fog: with Nathan Crawley
Eyes Wide Open featurette
Stills gallery
Cinematography & Production Design featurettes
And much more
Commentary with Cast & Crew
180 degrees: A conversation with Christopher Nolan and Al Pacino
Day & Night: The making of Insomnia
In the Fog: with Wally Pfister
In the Fog: with Nathan Crawley
Eyes Wide Open featurette
Stills gallery
Cinematography & Production Design featurettes
And much more
Widescreen 2.35:1
Dolby Digital 5.1 English, French
Subtitles: English, English for the hearing impaired, French, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Dutch
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
With Michael Mann slipping of late, Christopher Nolan seems destined to become the No 1 exponent of style and substance mainstream cinema.Remaking the superb 1997 Norwegian thriller of the same name and relocating it to Alaska, the story follows two L.A.P.D detectives who to escape an internal affairs enquiry go north to aid in the search for the killer of a college student. Once there a botched stakeout results in death and recrimination, the killer then starts to taunt one of the detectives who begins to unravel as the pressure of the case as well as the continual daylight starts to get to him. Nolan reins in Pacino's excesses to great reward and there are smart supporting turns from Robin Williams, Hilary Swank and the excellent Martin Donovan.High on suspense and a well sustained atmosphere of desolation both physical and spiritual this along with the Bourne Identity are the best American Thrillers of the last 10 years.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is an incredible tour de force from an up and coming young british director, his first hollywood scale film after the brilliant Memento(2000) and the resultant cv landed him the job of resurrecting the dark knight which he did spectacularly in june'05. Insomnia carries on the same nolan audio visual experience, he has a gift in melding beautiful imagery to appropriately restrained classical music and his style is seen in all apparently disparate films to date! Blurred whitish shapes come into focus as a glacial ice field amid classical music and a tiny sea plane is framed in the foreground as a frame of reference ,we then arc behind the plane as it flies over misty tundra over a huge lake and towards a remote Alaskan village "the halibut fishing capital of the world" This film starts as a whodunnit crime investigation which goes wrong as Pacino shoots his partner in a foggy gun fight.The resultant guilt and the midnight sun render him insomnic and his psyche crumbles.As it was Internal Affairs were on his tail and his partner was going to cut a deal! He conceals the shooting blaming it on bad guy Robin Williams(excellently cast against type!) Unfortunately Williams saw it all and is black mailing Pacino.The astounding thing is how comfortable Nolan is directing these heavyweights and his signature is on the film. In the same way that Batman Begins was the best Super hero film ever made, so this is arguably the best crime thriller ever made because it is a sumptuous masterpiece to watch .I recommend you rent/buy this film asap. Rollon more Christopher Nolan films
18 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Rating Explanation
I watch and own a huge number of films and can sit through most
dross. My ratings are based on my personal response to films,not
any standard of quality. Therefore:
I watch and own a huge number of films and can sit through most
dross. My ratings are based on my personal response to films,not
any standard of quality. Therefore:
1 star : So awful I walked out/switched off/fell asleep
2 stars: I managed to watch all of it, but it was painful
3 stars: It's OK - quite good, but I probably wouldn't watch it again
4 stars: It's good and/or enjoyable. I could happily watch it again
5 stars: These are special. My desert island films
A truly excellent thriller.
A U.S. remake of a Norwegian film, it's roots show.
Tense, twitchy and enthralling.Fantastic performances, potent settings, great script and direction.
Pacino plays an L.A. cop hiding from his own guilt while investigating the death of a girl in Alaska.
Robin Williams is chillingly convincing as the manipulative bad man.
Will be in any serious film fan's collection.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
And I'm being generous...
Conforms unfortunately to the great American cliched plot arc despite its origins in Scandinavian moral 'greyness'. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mario
A good cop can't sleep because he's missing a piece of the puzzle.
And a bad cop cant sleep because his conscience wont let him.
Insomnia is directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Erik Skjoldbjærg and Nikolaj Frobenius (1997... Read more
Insomnia is directed by Christopher Nolan and written by Erik Skjoldbjærg and Nikolaj Frobenius (1997... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Spike Owen
Things are not what they seem
Unfortunately I have not been lucky enough to see the Norwegian original of this film so what I say here is entirely based on Christopher Nolan's Insomnia. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Alyboy
Tiresome, Hollywood Rubbish
Pacino and sidekick fly in to Alaska to solve a simple murder case. It is not explained why the local police could not have solved it in a couple of days as it is obvious who the... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Johns
Somewhat of a cure for insomnia
Maybe I was expecting too much from a movie with a star cast of Hillary Swank, Al Pacino and Robin Williams and director Christopher Nolan, but I found this movie a bit of a bore. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Broomie
Pacino and Williams at Their Best
Insomnia (2002)
Two LAPD'S homicide detectives, the senior and decorated Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and the relatively less-experienced Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) are on... Read more
Two LAPD'S homicide detectives, the senior and decorated Will Dormer (Al Pacino) and the relatively less-experienced Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) are on... Read more
Published 13 months ago by Caneroad
Christopher Nolan has done it again !
I am one of those boring people who doesn't like European films so the remake of the Norwegian original was quite appealing to me. Read more
Published 17 months ago by xjenni_raikix
Training Ground
There are obvious metaphors galore in the 2002 remake of Insomnia. Detective Will Dormer (Pacino) takes a case in Nightmute, Alaska (Too obvious? Read more
Published 19 months ago by P. J. Potter
More than enough to put me to sleep...
Nolan's movies divide this reviewer! On the one hand there's the
brilliance of 'Memento,' the magnificence of 'Inception' and on the other the super-silliness of 'The... Read more
brilliance of 'Memento,' the magnificence of 'Inception' and on the other the super-silliness of 'The... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Bloodnock
Sleepless in Alaska
Sent to an Alaskan backwater to assist in a rare murder case, Detectives Dormer (Pacino) and Eckhart welcome the respite from their LA base where an Internal Affairs investigation... Read more
Published 20 months ago by tallpete33
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