Insomnia (1998)

I was motivated to view this again as I had just seen the 2002 Pacino version in the theater and wanted to compare plot points. This is, by far far far, the superior film. There's something about American filmmakers that makes them frightened to give us a conflicted hero – a hero who does terrible things. It's as though they refuse to trust us to sift through actions, find the motivators and still be on his side.

Skarsgard doesn't have quite the scene-stealing performance that Pacino did – but he has a more muted character to deal with, so that makes his performance laudable in its own right. I love that he started covering his tracks the moment he made them, instead of giving us the facial gamut of emotions that American films insist upon - since we apparently can't draw conclusions without the mugging. Good film. No...it's a great film.

A