director
Michael Mann
screenwriters
Eric Roth
Michael Mann
based
on the article
"The Man Who Knew Too Much" by
Marie Brenner
producers
Pieter Jan Brugge
Michael Mann
cinematographer
Dante Spinotti
music
Pieter Bourke
Lisa Gerrard
editors
William Goldenberg
David Rosenbloom
Paul Rubell
cast
Al Pacino (Lowell Bergman)
Russell Crowe (Jeffrey Wigand)
Christopher Plummer (Mike Wallace)
Diane Venora (Liane Wigand)
Philip Baker Hall (Don Hewitt)
Lindsay Crouse (Sharon Tiller)
Debi Mazar (Debbie De Luca)
Stephen Tobolowsky (Eric Kluster)
Colm Feore (Richard Scruggs)
Bruce McGill (Ron Motley)
Gina Gershon (Helen Caperelli)
Michael Gambon (Thomas Sandefur)
Rip Torn (John Scanlon)
Hallie Kate Eisenberg (Barbara Wigand)
Wings Hauser (Tobacco Lawyer)
Cliff Curtis (Sheikh Fadlallah)
Breckin Meyer (Sharon's Son)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 157m
u.s.
release: 11/5/99
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
other michael
mann films
reviewed on this website:
- collateral
- heat
- manhunter
- miami vice
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You can have a pretty good
time with The Insider while recognizing that it's essentially
a high-toned rabble-rouser. It has a buzz of excitement and complexity
-- the sense that we're seeing the actual back-room decisions
that affect lives. In 1995, 60 Minutes taped an interview
with Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, a former higher-up researcher at the
tobacco company Brown & Williamson. Wigand had some scarier-than-average
insights to share about the billionaire tobacconists, mainly
the fact that they were inserting ammonia into their cigarettes
to provide the consumer with a faster "fix." It had
been part of common knowledge for decades that cigarettes are
hazardous and addictive; here was a guy who told exactly how
and why. Except he almost didn't. At the last minute, CBS blinked
and aired a significantly altered version of the interview, and
the story became not only that B&W was covering up, but that
CBS was covering up, despite the loud protests of segment producer
Lowell Bergman and the vacillating Mike Wallace, who conducted
the interview and, according to the film, was torn between journalistic
integrity and his desire not to bring CBS down with a fatal lawsuit
from B&W.
The nice thing about The Insider is that it seems legitimately
interested in the thorny ethical issues it raises. There may
be clearcut villains here (Michael Gambon, as the representative
tobacco CEO, may as well have a mustache to twirl), but there
are no easy heroes. Bergman (Al Pacino) is a grandstander, a
tunnel-visioned idealist who worships at the altar of his own
integrity; Wigand (Russell Crowe) is a pinched, irritable man,
soft in the middle, who has gotten too accustomed to the easy
flow of tobacco money. We see these men in harsh light, observe
their flaws, and gradually watch them discover their strengths.
Though at heart it's another David-and-Goliath saga, these Davids
have a lot of baggage to cast off -- ego, paranoia -- before
they can effectively fight the giant.
At an earlier stage in his career, Al Pacino might have played
Wigand, or someone like him, and of course he did (Serpico).
Here he's the noisy fly of conscience buzzing around the head
of the true hero, and though the movie is constructed as Bergman's
story -- his struggle, his fight to get Wigand on the air --
Pacino plays his end close to the vest, exploding only at key
moments, when explosions are called for. He essentially (and
subtly) plays Bergman as if he were the supporting actor, regardless
of his top billing; he understands that it's really Russell Crowe's
movie.
I've been enjoying Crowe's
work a lot longer than most people, who seem to think he materialized
out of nowhere for L.A. Confidential;
as far back as 1992 he was low-key and impressive (and also funny,
which he rarely is now, sad to say) in the Australian import
Proof, where he starred opposite Hugo Weaving (The Matrix). One senses, in Crowe's
recent performances, a reserve of bottomless anger barely
held in check. Is this due to the frustration of a decade in
relative obscurity despite his fine work? (L.A. Confidential
wasn't the big hit that might have broken him out.) In The
Insider, Crowe's Jeffrey Wigand is on constant low simmer
-- the only time you really see him relax is when he's with his
wife (Diane Venora) and two little daughters -- and his eruptions
are mesmerizing, the bleats of a wounded soft-bellied animal
(Crowe put on some weight for the role) with the added power
of a defensive lion. Wigand knows all too well that his status
as a family man -- what makes him care about what the tobacco
industry is doing -- is precisely what makes him a vulnerable
target. When he first senses that his family is being threatened,
you can almost hear the blood gurgling into his head.
This electric, fleet-footed drama has been brought to you by
Michael Mann, of whose previous work (particularly the lugubrious
Heat, also with Pacino) I'm not
overly fond. In the past, Mann has designed his movies as kinetic
ideas on display -- abstract men at war. Here, miraculously,
Mann generally drops the vague nonsense and digs in with both
hands. There's still a bit of hey-look-Ma-I'm-a-director in his
style -- shots held for a tad longer than they need to be; an
ongoing fetish for massive close-ups -- but he puts the style
in service of the script. Mann wrote it with Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), and perhaps the presence
of a collaborator helped to rein Mann in, to keep him attentive
to the friction of emotion.
The moviemakers don't pretend that the story will end happily;
indeed, the very necessity for the movie itself is proof that
Wigand and Bergman didn't succeed as well as they'd hoped, since
Wigand is not exactly a household name. At best, he was simply
one more whistle-blower watched by millions on a lazy Sunday
evening, confirming what everyone already knew about the greedy
bastards running the tobacco industry (or any industry). Like
Oliver Stone in JFK, Mann may be saying that one lone,
crazy, discredited man speaking out against official lies might
just be enough. But enough for what? In the movie, we don't see
anyone watching the interview and rising up in indignation, and
chances are they won't watch the movie and do that, either. The
heroes of the movie seem to know this. They haven't lost the
fight, but they haven't really won, either.
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