Pacino and Williams stand out in a moody, evocative probe into the shades of guilt

Gaunt, sleepy-eyed Will Dormer (a perfectly cast Al Pacino) is a legendary Los Angeles police detective assigned to investigate the murder of a teenage girl in a quiet Alaskan village, but his arrival is really an escape from the scrutiny of a corruption investigation back home.

MOVIE REVIEW

INSOMNIA

DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan

CAST: Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank, Martin Donovan

RUNNING TIME: 118 minutes

RATING: R for language, some violence and brief nudity

WHERE: Alderwood 7, Crossroads, East Valley, Everett 1-3, Everett 4-10, Factoria, Galleria, Issaquah 9, Kent 6, Longston, Metro, Mountlake 9, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Parkway Plaza, Redmond Town Center, Valley Drive-in, Woodinville 12

GRADE: B+

His partner, Hap (Martin Donovan), is convinced department hero Will is untouchable, a clean cop. But Will snaps at Hap for cutting a deal with the district attorney and dances around issues of his innocence. Before this case is over, the tired old man will become a bleary, hollow-eyed wreck tormented by guilt and moral compromise.

A remake of the icy, sun-bright 1997 Norwegian noir of the same name, "Insomnia" is built on a brilliantly evocative motif: the 24-hour daylight of an Alaskan summer as the unblinking light of truth, a visual scream that blasts through Dormer's hotel room every sleepless night.

And while the story is almost identical to the original -- Will accidentally shoots his partner while chasing a suspect through a foggy forest and blames it on the suspect, only to find himself compromised when the suspect (Robin Williams) blackmails him with evidence of his lie -- director Christopher Nolan shifts the moral ground from snowballing corruption to shades of guilt and accountability.

Williams is unexpectedly chilling as the self-pitying suspect whose explanations and justifications make him all the more unsettling and creepy. Hilary Swank has a more thankless role as a gee-whiz rookie investigator on hand largely to play angel to Williams' devil, but she pulls it off.


	No fun in the midnight sun: On assignment in Alaska, weary L.A. cop Will Dormer (Al Pacino, left) confronts a murder suspect (Robin Williams) who, in turn, has some dirt on Dormer.

As in his ingeniously constructed sleeper hit "Memento," Nolan again plays with subjectivity, this time filtered through the increasingly blurred and hallucinatory perspective of Dormer. While the script plays Hap's shooting as an accident, shifting flashes of memory and visions muddy such surety and eat at Dormer's conscience, which Pacino (in his best performance in years) evokes with haunting self-doubt.

Don't expect a nail-biter. While Nolan is masterful with his rich, textured imagery, his moody style creates action scenes more evocative and entrancing than adrenaline-pumping. Despite the cat-and-mouse games between cop and criminal, this is less a battle of wills than one man's battle for his own soul. Nolan bravely treads where few American films dare to delve -- into the world of ambivalence and ambiguity -- and emerges with a compelling portrait.