The Whistle Blower Everyman takes on Big Tobacco.

Rating: Null/10 (11 November 1999)

The Whistle Blower Everyman takes on Big Tobacco.
The Insider is a film of remarkable intensity, considering there are no explosions, car chases or shootouts. However, it does capture the feeling of a man under pressure, the Hitchcockian hero up against impossible odds. Chubby, bespectacled Jeffrey Weygand is our hero, played with enormous restraint by Russell Crowe. He's a man who, like most whistle blowers, wants to do the right thing, but is terrified about the after effects on his home and family.
Enter 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman, played by the fast talking Al Pacino (who is less over-the-top than in his previous collaboration with Michael Mann). Looks like they want to do a piece with Jeff on 60 Minutes. That's when the corporate suits lay their knives into Jeff and the CBS studio goes into full damage control mode to protect their interests.
The problem with such a story, no matter how brilliantly acted, how crisp the dialogue is, how beautifully it is shot by Dante Spinotti, how layered the sound design is, and how stirring the musical score (except for a few operas Mann throws in, which push the material over the top), we already know EXACTLY what's gonna happen. We've seen these paranoid conspiracy films before (mostly in the '70s), and there really ain't much new happening here.

Then again, there was nothing all that new in Mann's "Heat", either, but it played like a first rate cop and robber story, and we didn't know who was gonna win the cat and mouse race. This time, there's no doubt.
However, the production is impeccable all around, and one has come to expect nothing less from this meticulous, if unsubtle, filmmaker. Mann is particularly good with regard to fleshing out his supporting cast with great character actors. Crowe has the great leading role and Christopher Plummer effortlessly, gracefully steals his scenes as the hard boiled Mike Wallace, but let's not forget the who's who of great talent like Colm (Glenn Gould) Feore as an ever practical attorney, the brittle but always believable Diane Venora as Jeff's frazzled and unhappy wife, Rip Torn's good ol' boy lawyer, Michael Gambon's deadly purring cat of a CEO -- most of them only show up for a scene or two, but they create a strong impression.
The movie does run close to three hours, but is compulsively watchable. I give The Insider a hearty * * *.