Product: The Insider [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 5.0
l999's real Best Picture
The oscars are a sham. The pictures with the most advertising in their campaigns won the awards. Without a doubt the Best Picture of the year was "The Insider." Russell Crowe's performance is of a diferent, higher order of magnitude than Spacey's. Pacino is so into his role and so believable that there's a stillness. Mostly, the picture does the most dificult of things, it makes as intense the strife and conflict and tension as it must have been to live through it if you were these people. The direction and visuals are brilliant and made me feel I was in a dream, as if I was the character I was watching. The time raced by. The most important quality of this masterpiece is that it stays in your memory. I found myself thinking about for days afterward. This may be because the writers do not underestimate their audience. They're not condescending. It felt like I was intensely living another's life. It's probably easier to make a drama out of physical action. To make a thriller as exciting as this out of real situations must be really hard.