Few filmmakers can take a whistle-blowing dramatization of real life potentially dusty legal shenanigans and news gathering and make it chest convulsively taut, but then few are directors of the caliber of Michael Mann (along with, perhaps, Tony Gilroy’s fictional corporate thriller Michael Clayton). This 1999 adaptation of Marie Brenner’s 1996 Vanity Fair article “The Man Who Knew Too Much” centers on Jeffrey Wigand, a top research scientist fired by cigarette maker Brown & Williamson with knowledge that could devastate the tobacco industry.
As Wigand struggles to support his family, he begins to speak out, both in court and in a taped 60 Minutes segment that exposes the tobacco industry’s deliberate manipulation of nicotine. Bitterness, anger and a sense of public duty propel him forward as his former employer threatens to sue him and his family. He is aided by Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino), an investigative reporter and producer for CBS’ Mike Wallace segments, but before the story can air Bergman finds himself in a battle of loyalty and trust when the corporation cancels it.
The Insider is an intelligent, adult film that returns us to the days when grown-up films like All The President’s Men, The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor regularly drew audiences and critical approbation. Russell Crowe is terrific as Wigand, a regular guy thrust into extraordinary circumstances. He embodies the tension and paranoia of this harrowing true-life tale with unerring skill and conviction.
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