Product: The Insider [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 5.0
Moral Play with Mann's Trademark Style
Al Pacino and Russell Crowe team up under the directorial guidance of Michael Mann to conjure up the most convincing morality play offered last year. (OK, so there weren't that many offered up.)And though The Insider may be the story of a tobacco industry whistleblower, rather than a guns-ablazin' thriller like Heat or Miami Vice, the movie nonetheless bears Mann's distinctive imprint, reveling as it does in color and style. In those wind-blown beach scenes where Pacino is howling into his cell phone, you almost expect to see Tubbs and Crockett strolling by in the background.Pacino gives a more nuanced version of his trademarked rant 'n rave performance and makes for a believable Lowell Bergman. Plummer is certainly solid, too. But it's Crowe's performance that commands your attention. Who'd have thought the overweight grey-haired bloke in this movie could be the same ancient warrior with an Aussie accent in Gladiator. Crowe gives a detailed, affecting performance in a role which portrays Jeffrey Wigand realistically, not just as a hero, but as a human.There are moral complications in this movie aplenty, and, if Mann has meddled with the facts, he has still striven to do a better job of representing what happened than Oliver Stone did in JFK. Even without the gunfire, this moral tale is a thriller.