Product: The Insider [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 5.0
What a great film!
Michael Mann has delivered an engrossing, visually compelling film about a subject that could have been lifeless and boring. This story of Jeffrey Wigand, a corporate VP and scientist for the Brown & Williams tobacco company, kept me riveted to my TV screen.Wigand, played by Russell Crowe in an incredible performance, blew the whistle on Brown & Williams and their corporate policy of using cigarettes as the means to deliver altered nicotine to their customers. His decision to do so resulted in personal hardship for him and his family.The other part of this story is about Lowell Bergman, played by a surprisingly low-key Al Pacino, and how he convinced Wigand to tape an interview with Mike Wallace exposing the B&W information. When CBS realized that the story could open them to litigation, they refused to run the 60 Minutes interview.This film tells of the turmoil surrounding both Wigand and Bergman as they find out that, in big business, money sometimes overshadows integrity.This is not an overly preachy film. It delivers a message as much about personal integrity as it does about corporate greed. Wigand is portrayed as a faulty hero - at times dislikable, at others a heroic figure who just wants to do the right thing. Kind of like most of us.The DVD delivers a fine anamorphic transfer and the audio is a subtle but clean Dolby Digital 5.1 track. There are limited extras (as is the norm for most Disney studio films) but the short featurette was nice to have, as you see the real Wigand and Bergman discussing aspects of the film.