One of the biggest dangers faced by an up-and-coming filmmaker is the burden of high expectations. If one is talented (and lucky) enough to make a movie that strikes a chord with critics and/or audiences, it can be tricky deciding what direction your career should take, now that people are anticipating your next move. This was the problem that Christopher Nolan faced after the release of his 2000 film, Memento, which not only bowled over the critics but also became the indie sleeper of 2001, accumulating deafening word-of-mouth during its protracted run in America’s arthouses before reaching an even wider audience on DVD. Memento made a dent in a public consciousness, people were curious about what was next for the newly anointed wunderkind who directed it.
Naturally, there was some head-scratching when it was announced that Nolan’s follow-up would be a remake of the 1997 Norwegian crime drama Insomnia. It was only natural to assume that the director of a buzz magnet like Memento would want to go Hollywood, but many people wondered what could have motivated him to helm a star-studded remake of an acclaimed foreign film, a career move that’s traditionally assumed on roughly the level of directing a Martin Lawrence vehicle. Was Nolan selling out, or did he have a legitimately interesting twist on the original material?
When I first saw Nolan’s Insomnia in 2002, I thought the former. Much of this had to do with the memories of Erik Skjoldbjærg’s original being fresh in my mind. Consequently, I had a hard time resisting the urge to compare the two films, and Nolan’s take was invariably found wanting. I mostly resented his need to soften the story, making its protagonist less of a prick and more of a showboat, a change that reflected the switch from Stellan Skarsgård to Al Pacino in the lead role. Likewise, there were a number of other narrative switcheroos that just didn’t sit well with me. I was hardly alone in this respect- Insomnia received mostly lukewarm reviews and opened to middling box office. Even the positive notices for the film seemed mostly respectful rather than enthusiastic, as if the critics were let down by the film’s inability to live up to the Memento’s high standard.
Six years later, in the wake of the resounding success of Nolan’s The Dark Knight, I felt compelled to re-visit Insomnia. I suppose I wanted to see whether my 
initial perceptions of it were skewed by my personal biases (pro-Memento, pro-Skjoldbjærg, anti-remake). Is it as subpar as I’d remembered? In a word, no. Insomnia isn’t a great film, but it’s a perfectly serviceable police procedural with some interesting elements, a movie that somewhat better than its middling rep would indicate.
This isn’t to say that it doesn’t have problems. The most glaring is Robin Williams’ performance as the killer who bedevils Al Pacino’s Det. Dormer (a too-obvious choice of names, by the way). Granted, it’s a tricky role to play- a man who has been sent around the bend by the killing he’s committed and now must manipulate the law officer who’s pursuing him in order to stay alive. Yet Williams never manages to make the character convincing. Instead, he gives a very actorly performance, with plenty of tortured facial acting plus a calm voice designed to tell us how unnaturally levelheaded the character is, but he never makes him work as a living, breathing person instead of an actor playing a role.
However, getting some distance from the original version of Insomnia has allowed me to better appreciate Al Pacino’s performance in the remake. Whereas Skarsgård performance in the original movie was a study in submerged conflict, Pacino’s has a much more physical take on the character’s troubles. In Nolan’s film, Dormer is facing problems from all sides- the case he’s working on, the Internal Affairs investigation that could very well ruin his career, his inability to sleep, and his guilt for accidentally killing his partner. By the time Williams comes calling to blackmail him with knowledge of the partner’s murder, Pacino is already in over his head, and the new complication just makes it even worse for him. It’s a surprisingly complex turn, and probably the last big-screen Pacino performance I’ve really enjoyed.
In addition, Nolan does a pretty good job at exploiting the stylistic possibilities of the story, particularly the never-setting sun of the film’s Alaskan setting. Most 
obviously, there’s the oppressiveness of the sunlight streaming into Dormer’s room as he tries (and fails) to sleep, but I also liked the way Nolan’s direction reflected Dormer’s shifting psychological state as the film progressed. The longer the character goes without sleep, the less he is in control of his senses, and Nolan makes the lights brighter and the sounds more invasive. There are also a number of effective moments in which Dormer visits the town in the middle of the night, the streets completely empty except for him. And a foot chase across dozens logs that are rapidly floating downstream is pretty damned exciting.
Don’t get me wrong- Insomnia is still a “minor” film in Nolan’s career. But watching it for the second time, it feels like a transitional effort for its director. It may have lacked the freshness and novelty of Memento, but I’d say that was good for Nolan in the long run, allowing him to make a movie that wasn’t simply founded upon a clever twist. In addition, it demonstrated to Hollywood that his sensibility- cool, clinical, philosophical- was compatible with a big-budget film. In addition, the film’s questioning of the morality of the crime drama anticipates Nolan’s work in The Dark Knight. Insomnia might not be of the caliber of Nolan’s other films, but it’s still a fairly solid film from a major filmmaker, and considering how good his subsequent work has been (especially The Prestige, my favorite film of 2006), that’s good enough for me.