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In this remake of a Swedish film, an L.A. detective and his partner get loaned out to a town in Alaska where night never falls for half the year. While they’re hunting a killer, the detective accidentally kills his partner and tries to cover the truth about the incident. But then the killer starts to blackmail the detective, all while a young local officer does investigations of her own into both men.

Insomnia is a methodically paced thriller from director Christopher Nolan (Memento, Inception). I was way ahead of the story after about a half hour, which is unusual for a Christopher Nolan movie. No twists or turns in this one — it ends about how you’d expect it to given the nature of the three main characters. Al Pacino delivers an interesting performance as the shady detective. With no sundown and guilt weighing heavily on his conscience, he can’t ever get to sleep — hence, the title of the movie. Pacino does a great job measuring out the character’s gradual deterioration over the course of the story. Robin Williams plays the killer and plays him fairly ‘straight’. The tone of the movie is so dour, I think I’d have preferred if Williams had ratcheted things up a bit more. Hilary Swank is reliably good as the young cop who threatens to foil Pacino’s and Williams’ tenuous alliance.

The snowy, mountainous Alaskan setting is a highlight of the film, captured beautifully in Wally Pfister’s widescreen cinematography. David Julyan delivers a suitably dreary score. With Paul Dooley, Martin Donovan, and Katharine Isabelle.