A "10"

Rating: 9/10 (13 November 1999)

From seeing the trailer and hearing that the movie was a true story about a corporate whistleblower in the tobacco industry, I didn't think that this movie would be terribly exciting. I did know, however, that this was Michael Mann's next project after "Heat"(1995), a movie near and dear to my heart, and that was what brought me to the theater.
It turns out that I was thoroughly captivated by this story from minute 1 to minute 157. Told by any other director this may have been a real bore but the combination of Michael Mann, Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Dante Spinotti (camera), and the musicians make this movie incredible. Usually when I watch a movie that uses extensive cutting between two protagonists, one is more boring than the other and I can't wait to get back to the good one. In this movie, the scenes with Russell Crowe are just as good as the ones with Pacino.
I couldn't find a hole in the acting amongst anyone including Gina Gershon who I thought might screw it up. Russell Crowe plays a perfect defensive, upper forties(he's really only 35), corporate and family man. Al Pacino plays a perfect upper forties man (he's really 59) at the top of his profession. I can imagine that it would've been pretty easy and tempting to vilify Mike Wallace but you won't find that here. Christopher Plummer portrays an intelligent Wallace who made me feel as if each of his decisions were rightly motivated by what he says is his main concern, getting old.
"The Insider" is shot very similarly to "Heat" in that there are many, many, telephoto and macro shots. Michael Mann must have the fastest lens available to be able to shoot telephoto in the dark with decent depth of field. This closeness has a way of making a city look like a place made up of just a few people, who you get to know very, very well.
I think Michael Mann has outdone "Heat" here and even though it probably won't get any Oscars, it should.