Product: The Insider [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 5.0
Russell Crowe is superb in this tale of corporate intrigue
Michael Mann's The Insider is one of the most important films made since the 1970s. It is a superb dissection of the corporate amorality that is rampant in America and is a seminal film in that it shows the collaboration of the media with the corporate state.Russell Crowe is outstanding as the tobacco company executive turned whistle blower who is betrayed by the powers that be in the media world. Al Pacino is at his best (and least hammiest) as the 60 Minutes producer who tries to break Crowe's story. (Christopher Plummer also is fine as 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace.)Mann has a through understanding of the paradoxes of the modern capitalist society. 60 Minutes will not run the story of the whistle blower due to its fiduciary responsibility to its own stock holders since it cannot do anything negative that will adversely affect its own financial portfolio and hurt the investment position of its own corporate officers. The only morality, ultimately, is money. This is a world far removed from the Hardy Boys ethos of All the President's Men.An important film with a great performance by one of the outstanding new talents of the cinema.