Insomnia

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

This film (2002) is a remake of the movie done in 1997 which was a Norwegian story set inside the Artic Circle. The setting is here is Nightmute, Alaska, which fits the constant daylight experienced by the residents. The opening shot shows someone applying blood to a fabric, presumably to frame an individual. Then there are shots of the white Alaskan environment as Detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino) rides in a plane over the frozen land with his partner Detective Happy Eckhart (Martin Donovan). His first name will become ironic as the story plays out. As IMDb points out Dormer’s last name in Romance languages implies sleep, which is also ironic here because that is something he will get little of.

They are met by the enthusiastic Ellie Burr (Hillary Swank), a fan of Dormer. (Could her last name refer to the cold exterior?). They meet Chief Nyback (Paul Dooley), an old acquaintance of the visiting detectives. The Chief requested their help although he notes that there is an Internal Affairs investigation going on that may involve Dormer. We quickly realize that there may be a dark side to the protagonist here. Director Christopher Nolan uses doubles in his films to show the negative aspects of his protagonists, such as in the Batman movies, Memento, and The Prestige.

Dormer insists upon seeing the body of seventeen-year-old Kay Connell despite being told all the evidence is in the report. It points to Dormer’s insight and experience. Dormer realizes that the killer took his time to wash the victim’s hair and cut the nails, not applying any makeup. He and Burr conclude the murderer must have known the victim and wanted to erase any traces of her that might connect them. The process was patient and methodical revealing a calculating killer. Dormer observes that the perpetrator “crossed the line and didn’t even blink. You don’t come back from that.” The idea of stepping over the line of legality and morality and the resultant fall from salvation is something that the film addresses.

After examining Kay’s room, Dormer sees that she cut out the picture of her best friend, Tanya (Katharine Isabelle). It is proof that animosity developed between the girls. He also observes gifts that her boyfriend, Randy (Jonathan Jackson) could not afford to give her. Dormer concludes there must be an admirer of some means involved. When Dormer says he wants to visit the school, the local police inform him that it’s ten o’clock at night. It’s the time of year there that has only daylight. Ian Nathan, in Christopher Nolan: The Iconic Filmmaker and his Work. says Nolan liked how the original movie “reversed the poles on film noir.” I assume that means that film noir movies take place mostly in the dark to mirror the dark deeds characters do. Here the light exposes those wrongful actions.

Even though Dormer doesn’t want to discuss his department investigation, Eckhart drops a bomb saying he has cut a deal which means he will testify concerning evidence used in arresting drug dealers. Dormer sees the Internal Affairs action as a means for others to get promotions, indication that selfish, not admirable, behavior is the motive. Dormer leaves upset. This fact makes what happens later question Dormer’s motives.

Dormer presses boyfriend Randy for information and realizes he doesn’t know the mystery person Kay was seeing even after Randy beat her, showing his brutal side. The police find Kay’s backpack which contains a mystery by A. J. Brody. Dormer is trying to discover connections to the victim since he believes it will lead him to her secret admirer who he believes is the killer.

Dormer sets up a trap, saying they are still looking for Kay’s backpack at a certain location. They stake out the area. The scene takes place in a fog on rugged terrain, which is symbolic of mystery and perhaps the inability for Dormer to see what is morally correct. The suspect shows up and wounds a police officer. In pursuit, Dormer fires at a shadowy figure which turns out to be Eckhart. Dormer goes along with the story that it was the suspect who killed Eckhart. Dormer tells the dead detective’s wife about the death, and it is ironic when she tells Dormer not to arrest the person who killed her husband. She doesn’t realize that she is actually telling Dormer to kill himself.

Burr is now investigating Eckhart’s death. Again, ironically, she doesn’t realize that it is Dormer she is after. He hides his gun just as he hides his criminality. The lawful here becomes the unlawful, as morality is turned upside down. Dormer cannot sleep. The brightness of the day will not allow him the luxury of escaping from his deeds into the relaxed darkness of dreams. He thinks he sees Eckhart among other policeman, as if the man is haunting him. Dormer is suffering from guilt, which is a major element in Nolan’s films: the leaving of the family in Interstellar; the drowning death at the beginning of The Prestige; the possibility that Leonard is the cause of the death of his wife in Memento; the torment the main character feels in creating a weapon of mass destruction in Oppenheimer.

Warfield, the IA investigator, calls Dormer at the restaurant where Rachel Clement (Maura Tierney) works. (Does her name imply that she is the opposite of the inclement weather in the area, and can bestow individual clemency?). Dormer is nasty to Warfield, which may rise out of his guilt that his past wrongful actions will surface.

The police found a .38 caliber bullet at the foggy area and Dormer doesn’t let it be known that he also picked up the .38 caliber weapon left by the suspect. He shoots a bullet from the .38 caliber gun into the body of a dead dog and exchanges the casing for the .9 caliber bullet that killed Eckhart. The lack of sleep causes sounds in the police office to appear loud and disturbing. However, it could also mean that his world has become distorted by his upending the moral order in his life. Burr gives him a report to sign to close out Eckhart’s death investigation. Possibly due to a guilty conscience, he doesn’t sign it. He tells Burr to be thorough in her investigation. We may have here the compulsion found in Edgar Allan Poe perpetrators to confess their crimes.

As Burr takes another look at the evidence and finds inconsistencies, Dormer gets a call from the killer, Walter Finch (Robin Williams). He says he saw Dormer shoot Eckart and pick up Finch’s gun. He knows that Dormer is experiencing insomnia, and that he hides his clock to not remind him of how much sleep he is losing. At the end of the conversation he says, “We’re partners in this.” It shows how he is the demonic replacement for Eckhart. Finch may be a manifestation of Dormer’s darker self, his evil double, another element of Poe’s writing appearing here.

By bringing the victim’s best friend, Tanya, to the dump where her body was found and intimidating her by saying he will reveal that she cheated on her best friend with Kay’s boyfriend, Dormer gets Tanya to reveal that Kay’s secret admirer was Brody, the crime novel writer, who is really Finch.  

Finch calls Dormer again, and again, shows how well he knows him by telling Dormer his state of insomnia. He says that no one would believe him if he says that the shooting was an accident because of the scrutiny on Dormer in the IA investigation. Finch says that he’s not who Dormer thinks he is. It is an ironic statement because it suggests that the surface an individual projects is not the reality beneath. That point can be applied to Dormer also. Finch says he is not a murderer, just like Dormer thinks he isn’t. But then Finch raises the question that maybe the shooting of Eckhart wasn’t an accident. Nolan likes to insert enigmatic possibilities in his stories.

Dormer finds out where Finch lives and breaks into his apartment. Dormer sees pictures of Finch so he can now recognize him. Finch left a piece of paper at the top of the door so when he returns and finds it has fallen, he knows someone is there. He runs off and Dormer chases after him across a river filled with floating lumber. Dormer falls in and almost drowns. Does this scene imply that Dormer is unable to reach steady moral ground?

Dormer returns to Finch’s apartment and receives a call from Finch telling him to feel at home by taking a shower and resting there. Maybe he can even feed Finch’s dogs. His words are another indication that Dormer and Finch could be doppelgangers. Finch is intelligent because he says Dormer should know he’s not going to return to his place. And the only way he knows that Finch is the killer is because he told him so (although we know that Tanya’s statements point to him as a person of interest). Finch sets up a meeting between him and Dormer. Dormer plants the .38 caliber gun in Finch’s apartment. Dormer is trying to frame a man for a killing he himself committed.

Burr has been following Dormer’s advice about checking out the little details surrounding a crime. She realizes that the shot that killed Eckhart came from a different location and now she discovers, as did Dormer, that Finch, a local writer, is the author of all the books in Kay’s position, one of which was autographed, which means she knew him. Later Burr finds a newspaper that features the LA investigation. She repeats what Dormer once said, “A good cop can't sleep because he's missing a piece of the puzzle. And a bad cop can't sleep because his conscience won't let him.” More irony here that Dormer’s protégé is on the trail that leads to himself.

Maybe the best scenes in the film occur between Pacino and Williams. Here they meet on the ferry. Dormer tries to diminish what Finch says about them being in the same situation, not meaning to kill their victims. But Finch is persuasive, saying if it comes out that Dormer shot Eckhart, even if he says it was an accident, it meant that all his IA problems disappeared, which would seem suspicious. It would also ruin his legacy of being an effective cop. It might cause many of those he put away to have grounds to be released, if Dormer is shown to be a cop who alters evidence. Finch says when he was young, he was impressed by the police, and that is why he writes about them. He even wanted to be once, he says, but couldn’t pass the tests. All his statements show how similar he and Dormer are. They speak with their faces close to each other, which suggests they are two sides of the same coin. Finch says that they should steer the investigation toward the boyfriend, Randy. Dormer coaches Finch since he will be brought in for questioning because of the signed copy of the book in Kay’s possession. Dormer tells him not to elaborate, and that the investigation will lead to Randy. Dormer, however, does not reveal that he planted the gun at Finch’s place. After he leaves the ferry, Finch reveals that he taped their conversation, insurance that he has the goods on Dormer.

Finch calls Dormer again and the latter asks if Finch still has Kay’s dress. He feeds that line to Finch who now says that is evidence they can plant on Randy. Dormer really wanted to discover if he could find evidence in Finch’s possession to pin the killing on him. Since Dormer says he can steer the investigation he needs more facts about Kay’s death. Finch says he wanted to comfort Kay when she came to him distraught about how Randy hit her and was fooling around with Tanya. But Kay laughed at him when he held her and kissed her. He says that he hit her to stop her from laughing and his humiliation was the force that led to his beating her. Here we see that Finch’s pathology is deeper than that of Dormer’s. His telling Dormer about what happened is like a confession, an attempt to relieve the feeling of guilt. He says he thinks he will be able to sleep now. The theme of insomnia not allowing one to escape guilt is stressed here. It is telling that when Finch gives Dormer the opportunity to unburden, Dormer hangs up. He can’t so readily expel his guilt.

Finch, during his interrogation, diverges from Dormer’s advice, telling how Kay was afraid of Randy, how he abused her. Then he reveals that Kay said Randy had a .38 revolver that he hid in a heating vent, which is where Dormer hid the gun at Finch’s place. Here Finch is communicating that he knows Dormer was trying to manipulate him and the reason Dormer didn’t want Finch to say anything about Randy was because he wanted Finch to be the prime suspect. Dormer then takes over the questioning once he realizes what Finch is doing. He says that Finch gave the young girl gifts, implying Finch was grooming her, like a pedophile. After Dormer goes into a rage, he leaves the room.

Dormer can’t find the gun in the air vent at Randy’s place. It was a ruse by Finch. The police come and find the weapon where Finch relocated it. They then arrest Randy ironically on evidence that Dormer manipulated to prevent himself from being implicated. Now, instead, an innocent person is targeted for something he didn’t do. Dormer has done the opposite of what a cop is supposed to do.

Dormer and Finch meet again, and Finch says that it’s over because he now can go on with his life, scumbag Randy is in jail, and Dormer’s reputation is intact. He gives the tape to Dormer who disposes of it and points his gun at Finch. But Finch reminds him that his outburst at the police headquarters shows he would be a prime suspect in Finch’s death. Dormer then says he will tell the cops about everything. Finch reminds Dormer he destroyed any evidence of the two ever having a previous conversation that implicated Finch.

Finch is very smart and has thought it all out, except that Burr finds more about what happened. She uncovers a .9 mm shell at the site of Eckhart’s death, which undermines the .38 caliber gun being the weapon that killed Eckhart. She notes in some case files involving Dormer that a .9 mm was used. She encounters Dormer who looks wasted due to insomnia. Burr gives him a hug and can feel the .9 mm gun, and since none of the local cops carry that firearm, she is very suspicious.

Back as his hotel room, Rachel asks Dormer why he is moving furniture around to block the window. Even though it is dark in there, he still says it’s bright. Metaphorically he can’t hide his guilt anymore. He now does confess to Rachel about the case under investigation back home. He describes how a pedophile kidnapped, tortured, raped, and finally killed a boy. Dormer says he knew the man was guilty. Tellingly, he says his job is to “assign guilt.” Now he is placing that guilt on himself. The shot at the beginning of the film that showed blood being absorbed onto fabric involved Dormer taking blood from the victim and planting it in the perpetrator’s home. He admits he knew it “would catch up” to him, and mentions the investigation. He says the “end justifies the means.” He doesn’t sound convinced, probably realizing it is a rationalization. He asks Rachel, who he has put in the position of a clergyperson, what she thinks. She says it might be that it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But can he live with his actions? And that is the vital question this film asks.

There is an interesting cut to Burr who holds the .9 mm casing and now she must decide what to do, and can she live with her decision? Dormer picks up his badge and gun and decides to go after Finch, no matter the means or the consequences. Burr promised to meet Finch at his cabin where she does not know he killed Kay. He said he had letters from Kay that told of Randy’s abuse. He has no such letters that he could create in time for this visit. Dormer can’t find any evidence at Finch’s empty apartment so he too heads to the cabin. Burr notices Kay’s dress and Finch knocks her out. What follows is Finch getting the drop on the disoriented Dormer. He disarms him and beats him. Burr shows up and Finch escapes to get more firepower. Burr realizes that Finch is Kay’s killer, and he witnessed Dormer shooting Eckhart. Dormer admits these facts and adds that he just isn’t sure if killing Eckhart was an accident. Dormer sneaks up on Finch and they fight. They eventually exchange gunfire. Both receive fatal wounds. The shot of Finch falling dead and disappearing gradually in the water symbolizes the death of Dormer’s darker self.

As Dormer is dying, Burr is ready to throw away the .9 mm casing saying nobody has to know. He stops her and says, “Don’t lose your way,” as he had, forgetting to abide by the law. He says to just let him “sleep.” He can now have the ultimate escape from his guilt in the comfort of an eternal rest.