1997 - INSOMNIA, interesting crime drama out of Norway

One of my early Criterion discs I finally got around to watching.  This is one of their bare bones editions with no special features of any kind.  Insomnia is a good film, but it strikes me as hardly worthy of the masterpiece treatment that they are known  for and they probably knew it at the time of the disc's release

The Swedish cop investigating the death of a girl in Norway has to cope with a few problems, like accidentally shooting his partner and then trying to cover it up after the murderer of the girl figures out what is going on.

Stellan Skarsgård plays the cop who is first introduced as being a real professional a cop's cop as they say. 

Further into the film it's clear his really bad case of insomnia isn't exactly a matter of living up in the land of the midnight sun but a guy who has more than a few sexual repression issues to deal with.

This is a well made crime drama and Skaarsgård is a lot more believable in this role then he was in that Meryl Streep contemporary classic, Mama Mia.  That film will hopefully not show up on the Criterion label in the near future.

95 minutes.