Factual error: Al Pacino is the subject of an internal affairs inquiry in Los Angeles. It's unlikely a police officer under investigation in L.A. would be sent to Alaska to work on a murder case. Police officers under investigation are routinely given desk assignments until officially cleared and allowed to return to active duty.
Insomnia (2002)
1 factual error - chronological order
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Robin Williams, Al Pacino, Hilary Swank, Martin Donovan, Oliver 'Ole' Zemen
Continuity mistake: In the scene on the ferry, when Williams and Pacino are talking, in the shots showing Williams, Pacino is facing the center of the ferry frequently, while immediately afterward in the shots showing Pacino, he is facing Williams again.
Will Dormer: You shouldn't knock misdemeanors.
Ellie Burr: Oh, but it's small stuff. It gets so boring.
Will Dormer: It's all about small stuff. You know, small lies, small mistakes. People give themselves away, same in misdemeanors as they do on murder cases. It's just human nature. Aren't you gonna write that down?
Trivia: Not a mistake, just something nice to notice: "Dormer" sounds like "dormeur" that is to say the French for "sleeper".
More questions & answers from Insomnia
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Answer: Plot device to make Ellie look like a super sleuth remembering Dormer even carries a backup. When Hap and Dugger were comparing guns Hap says he and Dormer both carry S&W .45s. This makes the 9mm casing Ellie found a complete mystery to everyone else. So why the switch? Dormer's primary might be empty, but this is the first time Dormer shoots and all the characters act like there are only two shots fired in the fog, so for it to be empty he would have to be terribly sloppy. If he's so bad he forgot to load his gun it's equally likely he left the safety on. Maybe Dormer is just so used to being a dirty cop he instinctively uses the backup whenever possible to create an alibi. Ultimately, there is no explanation for this in the film, and if blink you don't even see the switch and are very confused when the 9mm casing shows up in the first place, if Nightmute carries.40, and Dormer .45, then 9mm has no place at all.
In the Netflix version with subtitles, when Dormer fires his primary weapon, the subtitle says "gun clicks." Dormer briefly looks at his gun and then pulls his secondary weapon. Nolan may have intended this to be ambiguous so the viewer doesn't know whether it was an accident or intentional (Nolan would never leave a "mistake" in the final edit - in fact, in interviews, he said he watched the movie at least a hundred times while editing), but the subtitles seem to put this debate to rest.