Product: The Insider [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 2.0
Would've been a better documentary.
"The Insider" is the story of a man named Jeffrey Wigand who blows the whistle on Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. Apparently, the company put chemicals in their cigarettes to facilitate the addiction process, as well as ignoring Wigand's efforts to reduce some of the cigarette's harmful effects. Yes, you guessed it: dull stuff for cinema; should've been a documentary.The director Michael Mann must've known this material wasn't exciting in terms of dramatic film, because he certainly pulls out all the stops in distracting us: a 7-minute intro somewhere in the Middle East that has nothing to do with the story (though it DOES introduce us to Christopher Plummer's brilliant Mike Wallace); inexplicable slow-motion; glum coloring (lot of blues and grays); weird angles; endlessly moving camera, et al., and so forth, and et cetera. This movie didn't really grab me till the whole CBS / conflict-of-interest thing got underway . . . problem is, you have to wait till the last half-hour for it. This is, I think, the real movie, here. Certainly a lot more potential for drama than watching an executive sitting around in a hotel room waiting to give a deposition. As presented, the Hallowed Halls of CBS are as venally arrogant as one might expect; we wish there was more of it, particularly more of the wonderful Christopher Plummer (no wonder the real Wallace was uncomfortable with this movie! -- Plummer's portrayal of a pretty likeable but compromised and arrogant icon doubtlessly hit too close to home).As for the principal actors: Al Pacino portrays "Al Pacino", and if you like that, fine. The Wigand part? Well, the filmmakers would've been better advised to find an actual middle-aged actor to play the middle-aged Wigand. Russell Crowe is a fine brooder, but the ugly make-up and bad hair merely make this young actor look like a storyboard drawing come weirdly to life.Finally: "The Insider" is not without merit, but it's pretty thin, and pretensious for all that.