BLOWING THE WHISTLE ON ONE OF 1999'S GREAT FILMS

Rating: Null/10 (15 April 2000)

Congratulations to Michael Mann for turning what could have been a solid anti-corporate big business lecture into one of the most blistering and dynamic treatises on our need and right to free speech.
This man must surely rank as one of America's most incisive, intelligent and exciting film makers.
Like Oliver Stone did in "JFK", we are bombarded with facts and styles in the director's quest to tell his story.
The difference here is that the focus is on 2 sharply delineated characters.
Pacino is customarily superb as Lowell Bergman with his backbone of steel, but Crowe is a total revelation as the oppressed Jeffrey Wigand, betrayed at every turn in the cruellest of ways.
It's a stunning piece of work.