Truly superb drama with excellent performances by Pacino, Crowe and Plummer

Rating: 10/10 (10 July 2012)

Michael Mann follows his superb Heat with an excellent if more cerebral drama.
Firstly, the script by Eric Roth and Mann brilliantly distills a complex story into narrative that is suspenseful, emotionally effective yet highly thoughtful and sophisticated. It certainly has a lot to say about the shady worlds of US corporate, legal and media culture. Despite this complexity the film zips along at a terrific pace, mainly due to the excellent script being supported by great direction and first rate acting by the whole cast, albeit special mention has to go to Pacino, Crowe and Plummer for truly outstanding performances.
Certainly that fearsome intangible of powerful corporate forces working to destroy an individual's reputation comes across very strongly, and Russell Crowe's intense performance is key in selling this to the audience. It is also fascinating to see the situation that Pacino's Lowell Bergmann's character is put into by these corporate forces, and these two character's willingness to hold onto their integrity and beliefs is genuinely affecting despite the great personal cost it has on their characters, particularly Crowe's.
Crowe's and Pacino's excellent portrayals are well complimented by Plummer veteran reporter/correspondent character, and the journey this character goes through while different, is nevertheless fascinating even if his character doesn't generate the same levels of sympathy for his plight – in fact it is his initial actions at a key point in the story that generate a great sense of disappointment in his character Mann orchestrates proceeding with bravado and panache, though not forgetting that this is a cerebral drama where ultimately it is the actors' performances that will lead to the success of the movie. However, Mann is a master of embedding slick film-making around excellent dramatic performances. Not only does he get the actors to shine, but he yet again draws excellent work from both the photography and editing teams, and huge credit has to go to editors William Goldenberg, David Rosenbloom and Paul Rubell, musicians Pieter Bourke, Lisa Gerrard and Graeme Revell, production designer Brian Morris and particularly Mann regular director of photography Dante Spinotti. It certainly deserved its 7 Academy Award nominations and in my view should have won several.
Despite its lack of commercial success, this is a fantastic film, which tells of terrific story through excellent performances from its lead actors, who work in a visual environment that beautifully complements their performances, for which Michael Mann deserves huge credit.