Insomnia Has A Great Robin Williams Performance And Some Overly Predictable Elements

Compared to other entries in Christopher Nolan's filmography, Insomnia can't help but feel a bit routine in execution. Now, the film overall is actually pretty entertaining, a well-done cat-and-mouse crime thriller with one particularly strong performance I'll talk about later, but compared to the narrative audaciousness of fellow Nolan movies Dunkirk or Memento and even just considered on its own merits, Insomnia feels more paint-by-numbers in concept and execution of said concept. But even paint-by-numbers can be plenty fine when the paint looks pretty and Insomnia most certainly has some super colorful elements that help stand out.

Memento Is An Early And High-Quality Ambitious Effort From Christopher Nolan

In March of 2001, Christopher Nolan's second movie (following his low-budget 1999 effort Following which received barely a theatrical release domestically), Memento, made its way to movie theaters. We all know his name today, making him one of the few modern day filmmakers to have real cache as a name, but back then he was just another unknown indie filmmaker looking to get people to give his small-scale thriller with an unorthodox narrative structure a look-see. Though he'd grow in scope in the years to come, numerous traits that would be heavily associated with this auteur can be found in Memento while the high level of quality found in many of his subsequent works is also very much here.