For the New York Times, Janet Maslin praised the principal performance by Skarsgård and added that 'Mr. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times compared it to the Fyodor Dostoyevsky novel Crime and Punishment. The film has been widely praised as a psychological study and 'semi-noir'. Kristian Figenschow as Arne Zakariassen.Engström drives out of town, his face and eyes showing great weariness he seems not to have recovered from his insomnia. Engström expects Hagen to arrest him, but instead she simply places the cartridge case on a table and leaves. She notes that it is a Norma case, which Engström confirms is a brand used by the Swedish police. Just before he leaves town, Engström is visited by Hagen, who shows him a cartridge case found at the site where Vik was shot. With Holt dead, and this definitive proof that he was the murderer, the case is closed. When he rummages through Holt's nearby house, Engström finds Tanja's dress, which Holt had removed before dumping the body. Holt tries to flee across a pier, but the rotten floorboards give way and he falls into the water below, striking his head on the way. He explains how he killed Tanja in a fit of rage when she rejected his advances. Holt suspects that Engström has come to kill him and holds him at gunpoint. However, Hagen is not convinced of Eilert's involvement, and when new evidence emerges, Engström knows that it is only a matter of time until Holt is arrested.Įngström tracks down Holt in some rotting wooden buildings at the waterfront and tries to talk with him.

The two meet and decide to frame Tanja's boyfriend Eilert for her murder, with Engström later planting Holt's gun under Eilert's bed. He correctly deduces that Holt killed Tanja, but Holt blackmails Engström with his knowledge of the Vik shooting. Things become even worse when he learns that Tanja's murderer saw him shoot Vik.Įngström learns from one of Tanja's friends that she had been seeing Jon Holt ( Bjørn Floberg), a crime novelist. Haunted by guilt and unable to sleep with the midnight sun of the Arctic, Engström becomes increasingly unhinged and starts hallucinating about Vik. When one of his colleagues, Hilde Hagen ( Gisken Armand), is assigned to investigate Vik's death, Engström becomes worried about ballistic fingerprinting and tampers with evidence to support his story. While shooting at what he believes to be the suspect, Engstrom accidentally kills Vik, who had mistakenly run right instead of left as ordered.Įngström initially tells the truth about the shooting, but realises that everyone assumes that the fugitive shot Vik. Without telling his colleagues, however, Engström carries a gun from his days in the Swedish police, who routinely carry firearms. Events take a turn for the worse when the fugitive shoots one of the pursuing unarmed Norwegian police officers. Vik is nearing retirement age, and his memory is failing.Įngström devises a plan to lure the murderer back to the scene of the crime, but the stakeout is blown and the murder suspect flees into the fog. Engström is a police inspector formerly with the Swedish police who moved to Norway after being caught having sex with the main witness in one of his cases. When 17-year-old Tanja is found murdered in the city of Tromsø, far up in the Norwegian Arctic, Kripos police officers Jonas Engström ( Stellan Skarsgård) and Erik Vik ( Sverre Anker Ousdal) are called in to investigate.

The film inspired the 2002 American remake Insomnia. The screenplay was written by Nikolaj Frobenius and Skjoldbjærg, and the soundtrack by Geir Jenssen.

Insomnia was the film debut of director Erik Skjoldbjærg. The title of the film refers to his inability to sleep, the result of his guilt (represented by the relentless glare of the midnight sun). The investigation goes horribly wrong when he mistakenly shoots his partner and subsequently attempts to cover it up. Insomnia is a 1997 Norwegian thriller film about a police detective investigating a murder in a town located above the Arctic Circle.

Insomnia film 1997 streaming