Product: The Insider [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 5.0
Riveting
Man was I upset when this thing ended after just three hours. For anyone who's ever worked in a big glass skyscraper this film is truly cathartic. I think it is too narrow to focus on the journalistic or the tobacco-industry elements of The Insider. Like HEAT before it, Mann's film is a highly dramatized portrayal of ethics in the modern world. Truly a remarkable film that earns everything it asks for from the audience. On a lesser note, I also think it is something really unique when big-budget Hollywood productions such as this one eschew explosions and spaceships to focus on telling a human story. Cheesy as it may sound, I believe a film like this is much closer to gargantuan filmaking than... well let's justs say GLADIATOR.