Deep "Insider"

Rating: 9/10 (7 February 2007)

Where would the filmakking without Michael Mann? The notoriously detail-oriented director has crafted such masterpieces as "Heat" and "Collateral", which transcend mere bullet operas and turn instead into wrenchingly violent character studies. However, in "The Insider", to quote Peter Travers, "the characters shed no blood, only principles." A young Russell Crowe beefs up and grays down to play Jeffrey Wigand, and ex-Big Tobacco exec who wants to go on national TV and blow the whistle on some of his company's darker practices. 60 Minutes supervisor Lowell Bergman (a fiery Pacino, who gives an excellent performance, although bearing no resemblance to the real Bergman)fights to get Wigand on the air, while the CBS Brass, along with veteran reporter Mike Wallace (Chritopher Plummer)do their best to kill the story, fearing a lawsuit. Mann turns a real-life newsroom battle into a pulse-pounding thriller, complete with a tense score by Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke, and superb cimenatography by the great Dante Spinotti. If you want a single scene that showcases all of this, I'll give you one; Wigand golfs at night, and is threatened by a Big Tobacco worker. By blurring the world around him and shooting the driving range in ominous greens and blacks, Mann gives us a look inside Wigand's indecision, anger, and isolation. Wow. This is one of the best films of the 90's.