In a perfect world. . .

Rating: Null/10 (5 March 2000)

. . . this would be just another movie. The uniformly strong acting, the tautly-scripted storyline, the assured but (for the most part) largely unobtrusive direction - this stuff should just be par for the course. Back in the mid-70s these kind of smart, densely plotted, clearly focused movies were done all the time. Sadly, in today's Hollywood of Michael Bay, Lucas/Spielberg clones and Tarantino wanna-bes - where shock and spectacle, pop culture hipsterism, and visual overkill predominate - an intelligent, sensitively wrought movie like The Insider comes across like some kind of revelation. Rather than what it is: a good, competent film - not a transcendent one, nothing that will stay with you for a long time after you've seen it: in short, not a Best Picture nominee. And yet, of all the films up for the Oscar this year, I'd say this one is the best; what does THAT tell you about the movie cycle we're currently going through?
I don't mean any of this to take away from the movie itself. There's much to like here, particularly the lead performances from Al Pacino and Russel Crowe. Crowe brings a crimped, repressed intensity to his role as Jeffrey Wigand, who blew the whistle on big tobacco and then had to live with the consequences. His stillness and meek stolidity simultaneously pull you in and yet keep you distanced at the same time. He internalizes the role to such an extent that we can sense the springs and whirrings going on underneath without him having to show any of it to us. As a matter of fact, it's very much the type of controlled intensity which Al Pacino brought to his work in such 70s films as Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and (especially) the two Godfathers. Alas, it's a skill that has long deserted him (or been deserted by him) and he has become one of the most "showy" of actors. No Pacino performance can properly be called subtle anymore - it's merely a question of the degree his over-acting takes: either full-steam-ahead scenery chewing (Scent of a Woman, Dick Tracy, Devil's Advocate, Heat) or a more relaxed hamminess which at least keeps him on the same earthly plane as his co-stars (Carlito's Way, Glengary Glen Ross, Donnie Brasco). Happily, The Insider falls into the latter category, and his portrayal of "60 Minutes" producer Lowell Bergman, while certainly heroic and larger than life, is also imbued with a real sense of friendliness and compassion. In dealing with Wigand, he is forced to adopt several different roles - friend, confessor, sounding-board, even big brother - in order to nudge the man into telling his story. Pacino goes through the changes with ease, but he also suggests a real concern and protectiveness for Wigand which go beyond his need to get a good story. As such, the film becomes primarily about the relationship forged between these two men. This is a good way to focus the story, since it puts a human face on the larger issues raised instead of just being a simple-minded polemic, whose characters exist only to move the plot along.
What else. Um, let's see - the direction is solid, for the most part; it lets the story tell itself rather than trying to inject much bogus "style" onto it (there are some lapses here and there - some overly dramatic soundtrack choices and a misplaced "hallucination" scene in a hotel room - but nothing too major). The supporting cast is all good - though certainly no more than that. This is particularly true of Christopher Plummer as Mike Wallace, who's drawing all sorts of accolade for what is basically an impersonation. An enjoyable one, to be sure, but it never really goes beyond the surface. Of course, the film doesn't help matters by writing Wallace as a shallow dupe and corporate lackey - it really does a hatchet job on him and I'm not sure how justified it is. The final third of the film, in fact, is a little hard to take - the part which deals with "60 Minutes" refusal to air the tobacco story. It just doesn't seem as compelling as the earlier part of the film - partly because Wigand, the most interesting character, gets pushed to the background and it becomes a one-man show for Al Pacino. And when I say one man, I really mean it: the Bergman character is portrayed as the only one with any integrity whatsoever, as he single-handedly (and single-mindedly) pushes to get the story out through other media, while his colleagues (including Wallace) are content to tow the corporate line. The filmmakers exaggerate the facts here, and the film suffers as a result: it puffs itself up too self-consciously as an "issues" movie, rather than letting those issues emerge organically through the kind of character study the first part did so well. And any time a film makes one character the sole repository of goodness and integrity, as it does with Pacino here, it tends to become strained and unbelievable. So, too, does The Insider in the final half hour.
Up until then, however, it's good - though certainly not the second coming of All the President's Men (the film it's most often been compared to). There's no reason, though, why every film shouldn't be this good; there's nothing amazing going on here, just an interesting story, well told. If that's the kind of virtue which gets lauded in Hollywood these days as a masterpiece, then I think we're all in a lot of trouble.