The toughest battles are always internal...

Rating: 9/10 (25 February 2017)

It's interesting that, on several occasions, "The Insider" insists on the fact that it was a dramatization and at times fictionalization of real-life events as if the makers decided to adopt the characters' honesty and transparency. It's all to the credit of Eric Roth and Michael Mann who respectively wrote and directed a powerful drama about men caught in professional and ethical dilemmas, but ultimately, making the right choice. Still, this is a long road to these 'right choices', paved with seemingly insurmountable obstacles -the worst being internal- and depicted through a claustrophobic and moody thriller.
For the thrills, "The Insider" relies on a heavy editing, an abundance of phone calls between angry protagonists, a succession of threats and volte-faces, of confused hesitations and divisive decisions, the overall effect is dizzying and upsetting, there are many reliefs where the characters can question their choices but it's only at the end that we can finally breath. And as inspirational as the message is, we're also glad that this exhaustive journey has finally ended. There's no cheers, no arms raised, no champagne popping, no exchange of smiles, there's a feeling of sheer loneliness that inhabit all the players of this influence-wrestling game between tobacco companies and the fourth estate as if one couldn't lead a collective crusade without condemning himself to an individual exile.
It doesn't work for every movie but in the case of "The Insider", Michael Mann managed to inject a sense of existentialism in this quest for truth, that's not a matter of opinion that what the tobacco company did was wrong on every level, and even a smoker wouldn't deny it, but how about having the courage to denounce it? That's the whole point of whistle blowing, and the ungrateful burden rests on the shoulders on chemist Dr. Jeffrey Wygand (Russel Crowe), who meets CBS producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) after he's just lost his job. The meeting is purely coincidental but once Bergman understands that Wygand is under a contract of confidentiality, his instinct tells him that something doesn't smell good about the tobacco industry, and it's not just tobacco.
Wygand is a man of probity, and never is this certitude shaken to pretend to mislead us, even when the adverse parties try to sabotage his image. What the film shows though is that he's a man of responsibility. If he speaks, he loses all his severance benefits and will be sued, not to mention the psychological effect of death threats and the growing discouragement of his wife (Renee Olstead). The marital element is crucial because there's no attempt of understanding what her husband is going through, all she sees is that they will lose the house, the ones where their daughters made their first steps, their privileges, their comfort, everything they built. From the moment, Wygand embarks in this battle, it's like an earthquake menacing the foundations of their marriage, and it's a matter of time before the inevitable. The tragedy is also on a private level.
And Russell Crowe plays Wygand in such a way that we can relate to him, a man who's caught in a worse fight than one on the battlefield because it's permanent and affects his life on a daily basis. Take the trigger of his decision to accept the interview with CBS, only when he's threatened in a patronizing way by his former bosses, he accepts CBS' deal. His ego is tickled, he makes the right choice for the wrong reasons, but it's still right in the sense that it will then throw the 'hot potato' to the journalist and confront them to their own ethical hypocrisy, when CBS is confronted to the legal intricacies that would force them to pay one hell of a bill if they ever interfere between a company and a worker. There comes a point where everyone must make a choice and pay the price.
Mike Wallace, one of the most enduring and respected correspondents of the CBS "60 Minutes" program, played by Christopher Plummer, uses all available means and his power to get the interview done, he's a man who interviewed tyrants and politicians, but he can taste the sour irony when the "seven dwarfs" of the third major tobacco company are preventing him from doing his job and forcing him to surrender to the cause of money. While he does play in the same team than Bergman, he's powerless when the real threat comes from "inside", quite fitting, given the film's title. Publishing the interview might ruin the channel's deal with Westinghouse, which represents a great opportunity of financial expansion. And now, the journalists are entrapped in the same dilemma. Bergman couldn't understand Wygand, until the end.The merit of "The Insider" is to highlight the truth that there's not one courageous step that doesn't have a price.
And while the film is driven by the whole chronicles of fact and investigation procedures, it really gets into an unexpected level of poignancy when the main players are confronted to their failures, ignoring that they are temporary. When Wygand learns that the airing is canceled, his reaction is pleasantly surprising, by that time, he's divorced and he's alone, but what he deplores is that his daughters will never know why their lives had taken such a dramatic change, to realize that it was worth it. And Wallace has a powerful exchange with Bergman, aware that infamy lasts longer than glory, and that this failure might ruin his legacy, because what he did was betraying the legacy of Edward Murrow, and since I recently saw "Good Night, and Good Luck", I could appreciate the comparison.
Truth ultimately triumphed and yes, it was all worth it, but it was an omelet that broke many eggs, and many spirits, but it's a triumph nonetheless and Wygand, Bergman and Wallaces' legacies wouldn't suffer from it otherwise, there wouldn't be a movie like "The Insider".