Insomnia Blu-ray Review

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John Carpenter knows it.  The Coen brothers know it.  Yes, even Hitchcock knew it.  The key to building suspense in an audience is through fog.  Lots and lots of fog.  And snow.  All things natural and dense and white - like innocence.  These are only a few of the elements in play during Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia, a Hitchcockian-spirited adaptation of Erik Skjoldbjærg’s film of the same name.  Without dialogue in its first four minutes, Nolan’s film – in a seemingly effortless manner – visually creates smothering suspense through an itemized contrast of the wild and striking Alaskan surroundings against Detective Will Dormer’s weary-eyed soulful expression.  It’s a haunting display.  Troubling, too.  And that’s only the beginning of the harrowing redemption that the never-ending daylight of Nightmute, Alaska has to offer him.

Kay Connell (Crystal Lowe) has been murdered.  Two LAPD detectives, Will Dormer (Pacino) and Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan) have been flown in to help the local authorities, Detective Ellie Burr (Hillary Swank) and Chief Nyback (Paul Dooley), with the brutal crime.  While Burr works off her fascination of working with Dormer, the seasoned Dormer and Eckhart, if only to distract them from the Internal Affairs investigation going on back home, immerse themselves in the facts of Connell’s murder.  Yet, when Dormer accidentally shoots and kills his partner while chasing the case’s prime suspect through a heavy bank of fog, crime novelist Walter Finch (Robin Williams), he finds that he may have more in common with the murderer than he would care to admit.  As Dormer progresses solo on the case, his insomnia worsens and so does his grip on reality as he is haunted by past actions of planting evidence and the relentless taunting of Finch.  Burr, using her own talents as a detective, unknowingly brings the two men together in a classic showdown the questions each man’s “accidents” of murder.

Nolan, working to perfect his mastering of mood and tone, gets a lot of help from the brilliant cinematography of Wally Pfister.  Beautifully scenic and captivatingly brutal, the film’s visual language is top-notch, using language well-beyond its director’s experience behind the camera.  Pfister’s camera spins a hypnotic web of intrigue as lies are countered with clean shots of the cold wilderness surrounding the narrative.  This constant dynamic from the camera and the story creates a suffocating madness spiked by Pacino’s decent into himself as he closes in on the killer.

While we know this one example of the celebrated work of Nolan, Pacino’s performance is reason enough to herald this movie.  Not scene-chomping or over-the-top (as his recent performances have been), Pacino, as the troubled Dormer, gives a tight performance that echoes back to the truth found in his work from Michael Mann’s Heat and even earlier in Serpico.  Williams’ performance as local author and credible suspect, Finch, is of a scope that is both revealing and terrifying because of his use of classic logic that punctuates his character.  While he has proven himself capable of delivering drama, here, inside the endless day of Insomnia, his performance as the villain is intriguingly real.

Insomnia might suffer a bit from being a by-the-book sort of thriller, but Nolan’s use of characterization and Memento-like choice cuts keeps the suspense from deflating itself once the suspect is revealed.  Its pacing is naturally rich, but it won't talk down to an audience challenged by its length.  Nor is it bound to keep you guessing.  Make no mistake about it, Nolan wants you to know who the killer is.  There is no big reveal and certainly no surprises.  This isn’t a trick film.  It is played straight-edged and deadly exact throughout.  What makes this film memorable is how much alike the cop is to the criminal.  While Insomnia’s premise may be of a cat-and-mouse origin, Nolan keeps the suspense from failing by keeping the spirit of Insomnia keyed in on what he knows best: fatally flawed men-of-action.


Component Grades
Movie
DVD
4 stars
4 stars
DVD Experience
4 stars

Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - July 13, 2010
Screen Formats: 2.40:1
Subtitles
: English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German SDH
Audio:
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; French: Dolby Digital 5.1; German: Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
Discs: 50GB Blu-ray Disc; Single disc (1 BD)

Insomnia’s 1080p/VC-1 transfer is significantly better than any theatrical version I saw.  It certainly fits alongside the overall glossy sheen of Nolan’s Inception and The Dark Knight.  Black levels are pure, flesh tones are surprisingly not muted, and the browns are earth-like and gritty.  White levels are pure and the fog certainly feels sickeningly thick.  The dialogue is crisp and clear and is supported by a sophisticated DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track.

The ‘Special Features’ on the disc are, thankfully, layered and rich.  The breakdown is as follows:

Supplements:

Commentaries:

  • Director's Commentary:  A highly animated Nolan talks tirelessly about the filming of Insomnia with unmatched excitement.  The commentary track is presented chronologically in the way it was shot, with subtitles identifying the production day and the corresponding scenes. Nolan talks about the nonlinear qualities of shooting and gives incredible insight into the film.
  • Scene Specific Commentaries (42 minutes): Scene-specific tracks are available from actress Hilary Swank, screenwriter Hillary Seitz, director of photography Wally Pfister, production designer Nathan Crowley, and editor Dody Dorn.

Featurettes:

  • Day for Night (8 minutes): The cast and crew of Insomnia talk of production, elements of the story, performances, the look of the film, and more.
  • 180 Degrees (17 minutes): Nolan and Pacino sit down for an unscripted conversation from 2002.
  • In the Fog (12 minutes): Cinematographer Wally Pfister and Production Designer Nathan Crowley reflect on their preproduction work.
  • Eyes Wide Open (7 minutes): Clip-driven featurette on the subject of the reality in living with insomnia.

Deleted Scenes:

  • Additional Scene (3 minutes): One scene with optional director's commentary.

Photo Gallery

  • From the Evidence Room: A basic stills gallery of 23 images.

Trailers:

  • Theatrical Trailer (2 minutes)

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