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Insomnia -No Rest for the wicked- A Review by |
| I've had this DVD on
the bottom of my Netflix rental list for months and months. The plot of this movie had me
oozing in my pants, but for some reason or another I never bumped it up to the top of the
list and actually watched it. That is until I heard that Christopher Nolan (Memento) was
going to direct an English version of the film. Finding that out, I quickly bumped this
disc up, and after a long wait I've finally viewed this Norwegian DVD. Here's a basic plot run down: The movie centers around a cop (played by Stellan Skarsgård, American audiences will recognize him as the father from The Glass House or as the teacher from Good Will Hunting), who's been called in to help solve the murder of a high school girl. The girl was partying it up one night, and 30 hours later was found in a garbage bag in the city dump. Stellan's a very experienced cop who quickly devises a way to track down and capture the killer....but (there's always a "but") everything goes wrong and his partner ends up dead. Stellan's tormented by the murder of his partner and thanks to Norway's 24 hours of light, he is unable to get even a wink of sleep. Stellan eventually tracks down the killer, but things get murky as he crosses the line between right and wrong. Are the police as corrupt as the criminals? Is the wrong man going to jail? Well, there you have it. As always I'll leave the rest to the viewer to watch and discern. One thing you must know going into this flick though, is there is no obvious protagonist. You aren't going to know who to root for in this one, as everyone's got a bad side and "no one's perfect." Also, this movie is in subtitles, so it's not really accessible to everyone. And the mood and pace of the movie is very foreign and slow building. There's no real payoff in the end, and perhaps something is lost in the translation. All in all, Insomnia is an average murder drama that's not going to appeal to everyone. BUT, that's not the reason I watched this DVD. I checked it out to see what we could expect from Nolan's version of the film. Well, let's dig into that now, shall we... This movie is going to have to be changed greatly for it to appeal to American audiences, and it's going to have to have some major story changes. You saw the insomnia of the police officer, but you never really got into his head and felt why he was experiencing this affliction. Nolan's going to have to work some magic for audiences to feel this story. I admit he has a great blueprint to work with, but some major changes are going to have to take place, including: -Toning down of the sexual rage of the main character is a must. There's no way Al Pacino would agree to come on to a 17 year old character and nearly rape a hotel hostess. -The setting is changing to America somehow, but how will they explain the 24 hours of light experienced by some places in the Northern Hemisphere. I suggest having the story take place in the summer in Alaska. You could leave this part of the story out, but the moments when Stellan tries to cope with this are some of the film's best. -The speed and complexity of the story are going to have to be beefed up. This story builds slower than a snail's pace, but it doesn't pay off like you wished it would. This could be an Academy Award vehicle for Al Pacino, but the ending is going to have to be reworked for an audience to enjoy the film enough. -More fleshing out of the antagonist character, played by Robin Williams in the American version, would be a definite plus. In the original he has very few scenes and we never really get enough of him. He's a very original character and more exploration of him could be just what this movie needs. Two main characters, battling for screen time, just as flawed as each other would make me wett. Well, that's my take on Insomnia and it's American-remake
potential. Personally I have insane amounts of faith in Nolan and his cast (three Academy
Award winners: Pacino, Williams, Hillary Swank). Nolan is riding high after the critical
claim of the mind bending Memento, now he just needs to prove he can do a character-study
with an interesting story to boot. I'll be there on opening night to see if he can pull it
off, I suggest you do the same. |
-Now that you've read something, he's written. Wouldn't you like to find out more about Goc? Here you go. |
