Product: The Insider [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 4.0
Very engrossing film not likely to find a big audience
This film has and will continue to be compared favorably with that classic treatment of journalistic and corporate/government ethics, "All the President's Men." Russell Crowe is excellent at creating a believeable--and not always likeable--hero. Pacino's histrionics are thankfully toned down, and Christopher Plumber nails Mike Wallace in a way that is both insightful and fair. The growing feeling of paranoia and hopelessness against the power of Tobacco is palpable. However, what nearly ruined the movie for me, was the cardboard, one-dimentional portrayal of Wigand's wife. Maybe she really WAS an unfeeling, shrewish, cotton-head ninny in real life, but after about 2 minutes of her in the film, I and others I watched the movie with wondered why HE hadn't walked out years before! The family life and an odd little subplot having to do with the unibomber? really needed to be developed a further to make sense. Still, I was with the movie from the start and it carried me all the way through. But I can see why it never really found a wide audience; it's a little too "in the head" for those who need more action and less complicated conflict.