Good stuff, but don't see it when you're tired

Rating: Null/10 (7 November 1999)

I made the mistake of seeing this very complicated narrative when I was rather exhausted, and thus found it rather hard to follow. It wasn't helped by the lack of visual clarity. Michael Mann is going on my Christmas list, along with Spike Jonze and Stanley Tucci. These boys need to get themselves some Steadicam rigs, stat!
Still, the film has a lot of interesting issues racketing around in it. The question of how far a man should go for the truth, the responsibility of the media when information becomes "infotainment", the nasty machinations of the professional media machine...good stuff all. Still, sometimes it almost got lost in all of this that cigarettes and Big Tobacco were the real enemies, not Don Hewitt of "60 Minutes".
The real reason to see this movie is to check out some super acting by Al Pacino (in his most restrained recent work) and especially Russell Crowe. He surpasses his work in "L.A. Confidential" with a skillfully nuanced performance as a volatile, troubled man who decides to take a stance in order to satisfy his own tangled motives, and who finds himself in deeper than he had ever imagined possible. If there's any justice, Crowe will be in the running for an Oscar come March.