We watched this murder mystery over the weekend.

Big city detectives from Los Angeles arrive in a little Alaskan town to try to help with a murder that they apparently can't solve. That premise made me shake my head a little bit because they showed up on like day two of the investigation. Sure, the little town didn't see much in the way of murder, but they had a seemingly competent police force that in the end did solve the mystery without the aid of the detectives.

A twist along the way, one of the detectives shoots the other. There's a back story of corruption and the detective shot was about to turn on the detective under investigation. This added a sliver of intrigue, but the movie wasn't able to capture the real fervor of the corruption investigation, and the over-the-shoulder view we had of the shooting left no doubt it was an accident, and little was done to provide doubt by any of the characters.

In the end, the movie seemed to be fascinated with and focused on the 24-hours of daylight the town experiences for a bit every year, and the inability by the LA detective to handle the constant daylight. Sure, intriguing, but really Northern Exposure did a much better job of exploring that mental mess-up.

The mystery is transparent and the bad guy obvious. The tripping over clues and misdirection are no better than one could expect from any television cop show.

The performances, despite the weak story, are pretty good. Al Pacino plays the lead detective from Los Angeles, the one under investigation who accidentally shoots his partner; he's supposed to be struggling with the constant daylight and the difficulties of the murder while in the throes of the investigation, but instead he just comes off very, very tired. Hilary Swank plays the more inquisitive local Alaskan cop who should have been the one driving the suspicious-ness side of the shooting; she idolized Pacino's character and this could have been a good character eye-opener side story, but it wasn't. Robin Williams underplays the bad guy; he believably proclaimed the murder as an accident and the mutilation as an attempt to cover up his momentary insanity, which should have led to him being the sicko we barely learn he is in the end. Finally, Maura Tierney is momentary relief as the hotel manager where Pacino is staying; she so could have provided the links between the midnight psychosis that Pachino was in and reality, or even better, skewed him further into paranoia. The actors tried hard where the characters and plot let them down.

Good enough to rent or catch on cable.