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
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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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