So let's see who fed it and who ate it this week.

Abandon all hope of avodiing movie spoilers, all ye who read here.

Friday, I managed to drag poor li'l Ward to see Insomnia, 'cause I needed to get out and she was susceptible to my whims. Of course, she didn't like the film, but despite its faults, I'm gonna blame her dislike primarily on her and vow to probably avoid seeing anything with her that isn't a mindless happy popcorn movie. At this moment, I can't recall her liking anything decent, so I'm going to declare her tasteless in the arena of cinema. I'll correct this opinion at a later date should I be reminded of something. Anyway, Insomina was...okay. The movie is pretty damned predictable, sadly. I knew Martin Donovan's character was gonna die (though I admit didn't know exactly how) the minute he spoke. Pacino's character was a dead man the minute he pocketed the revolver and Williams never had a chance of getting out of the movie alive because his character was an idiot, despite the fact he was portrayed as "clever." I also had issues with Pacino falling in and out of some kind of fucked up Southern accent throughout the movie, which I think maybe was supposed to be part of his whole "I haven't slept in days" schtick (which was actually done pretty well), but was kinda annoying since he's supposed to be an LA cop. I couldn't help but think that Vincent Hanna wouldn't have made all the mistakes that Will Dormer (Dormer = sleep; don'tcha just love those clever names characters in movies have?) made and would've wrapped up the entire case easily, IA charges hanging over his head or no. Still, I didn't hate this film. Pacino's Dormer is supposed to be off his game; Alaska's white nights are fucking with him, as is the guilt over Eckhart's death. The character of Walter Finch thinks he knows what Dormer is about, but he puts too much into trying to handle him instead of protecting himself from him. This isn't necessarily surprising, because Williams' performance makes it pretty clear that Finch has fucking lost his shit. Insomnia was directed by Christopher Nolan, the same guy who did Memento and he does his job well. The movie looks good and you really get an idea of how things seem through Dormer's eyes. I'm curious to see if the original Norwegian version of this film is better, because the basic plot is a bit different (the killer blackmailing the cop who's supposed to be tracking him) and the setting is very interesting (a town so far north than the sun doesn't set in the evening), but everything else in this film we've seen in a score of other movies and the fact that those cliches have to exist in order to keep the plot together can't be a good thing. There are better murder mysteries, better insomniac movies, and better performances by Williams, Pacino, and Swank. Not that our leads are bad in any sense, but none of them really added anything to the mix. Even Nicky Katt, who always tends to play cynical, smart-ass characters, was wasted here as the local cop that resents Dormer's presence as an outsider who's getting in the way despite the fact said outsider has superior investigative skills. So, like I said, I'm going to see if I can't hunt down the Norwegian version. The IMDB summary looks better and it has Stellan Skarsgård in it. He's a badass, even if he does occasionally show up in crap movies to pay the bills.

So, final verdict? Basically, Insomnia is a pretty decent film if you can turn your brain off and not dissect it while you're watching it.