An encouraging word

Rating: Null/10 (6 November 1999)

Michael Mann is fascinated by the upscale details of the material world. Designer eyewear shimmers on the faces of middle-aged men with an aleatory glint; neckties and restaurant furnishings are given solicitous, almost autistic attention. It's not that Mann's eye isn't on the ball of this muckraking drama; it's more like he's mastered the Zen trick of being in two places at once.
It would be nice to say that Mann does the Best Work of His Career in this account of a tobacco-industry whistle blower's crucifixion at the hands of CBS News, but it's probably more accurate to say that he has his least knuckleheaded material in the solid-B-average, HBO-movieish script by Eric Roth. Russell Crowe gives a magnificent performance as the doughy would-be "man of science" attacked with a crisis of conscience, and Al Pacino is his blustery recent-usual self as the "60 Minutes" producer who fights the good fight to put him on the air. The movie stays compelling even at two hours and forty minutes--much of it devoted to Mann's fascination with scenes played in silence, except for New Age ululating. Mann doesn't know when to cut any more, but who cares--does anybody else know how to light neckties like this guy? Memo to Disney's Joe Roth: Get Mann a copy of Ryu Murakami's novel-as-impressionist-painting ALMOST TRANSPARENT BLUE, a sort of reverieish Japanese TRAINSPOTTING that has Mister Cool Blue Filter's name stencilled on every page.