The real drug pushers.

Rating: 9/10 (25 February 2003)

After his last masterpiece, HEAT, Michael Mann had enough integrity and credibility to attack the powers that be. So with this film he crosses the hot coals - lit by the drug pushing tobacco companies, multi-billion dollar corporations and the TV media - to tell the true story of Jeffrey Wigand who blows the whistle on his ex-employees about the drug induced nicotine they mass produce. 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman gets a whiff of the story and is quick on the trail. He is a man of his word that gets straight to the point and doesn't like to mess about. He may seem to be too patriotic, waving the sleazy media flag but he is not. You can label him as the last of the true media reporting heroes, a rare thing in this day and age. The other bonus Bergman has is that Pacino does a wonderful job in portraying him. You almost wonder why all the accolades are going to Crowe as the poor stressed-out Wigand. Not taking anything away from Crowe, the man is absolutely astonishing. As a viewer you do get swept into his deep ocean of paranoia and frustration. With these two performances up front there is no letting you down. What really picks up the film is the second half when all guns are out to do battle with the revelations of what goes on behind closed doors in the Corporate sector. The great thing is that there are no shoot-outs or dead bodies for dramatic effect. Reality can sometimes be fascinating! Mann's previous films were stylised, but with The Insider he knew that the script was good enough to stand on its own. So he went for the realist look where the photography of Dante Spinotti is just there to tell the story without any fancy lighting. Another technic Mann uses is the sense of paranoia. We get into Wigand's fear as the image lingers on at the end of a scene with the extras in the background becoming the focus of attention. Is one of them the tobacco thugs, spy or whatever? Or is it just me that's paranoid? This build up works perfectly for Pacino's character later in the piece when he realises what Wigand is going through. Nice to see a film not afraid to tell who the real criminals are, because these days we all just tend to shut up, bend over and take that Corporate $ firmly between the cheeks!