Jason Maloney reviews

Distributed by

Warner Bros.

Cert:

Cat.no: D 034682

Running time: 151 minutes

Year: 1999

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 30 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Languages: English, Italian

Subtitles: English (and hearing-impaired), Arabic, Italian, Polish

Widescreen: 2.35:1

16:9-Enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £19.99

Extras: Featurette

Director:

Michael Mann

Cast:

Lowell Bergman: Al Pacino
Jeffrey Wigand: Russell Crowe
Mike Wallace: Christopher Plummer
Don Hewitt: Philip Baker Hall
Liane Wigand: Diane Venora
Sharon Tiller: Lindsay Crouse
Eric Kluster: Stephen Tobolowsky
Debbie De Luca: Debi Mazar
Richard Scruggs: Colm Feore
Helen Caperelli: Gina Gershon
John Scanlon: Rip Torn
Thomas Sanderfur: Michael Gambon

The Insider centres on the story of Jeffrey Wigand (Crowe), and the developments arising from his sudden departure from a major US tobacco firm. Wigand claims he knows the truth behind nicotine addiction, and his employers want him silenced.

After a largely superfluous prologue that really only serves to establish the stylistic nature of the film as a whole, the tale begins. Crowe takes centre-stage for the most part, with Pacino's doggedly determined CBS news correspondant Lowell Bergman never too far behind. The dialogue is superb, the focus of the film during these scenes clear and compelling.

We're taken on a long and involved journey, shown a world of high-risk decisions on morality and ethics that tug at the conscience of each main character. Every minute aspect and nail-biting moment of tension and paranoia is magnified and lingered upon, with the assured excellence Mann has made his trademark.

During most of the opening 90 minutes, the camera lens is seldom more than 6 inches away from Crowe's visage, betraying all the tension and turmoil his whistle-blowing employee is going through. Disorientating first-person camera work switches from character to character - blurring, spinning and jumping - creating an uneasy tone that unsettles in the way it was clearly intended to.

Mann wove together a multi-level storyline quite maginificently in Heat, but here he doesn't quite pull it off. The formula is again based on assembling a huge cast of genuine talent, but most of them have only peripheral roles. This is Crowe's and Pacino's movie. The deeper the plot delves into its chosen can of worms the more any clarity is lost.

Perhaps it is deliberate, the manner in which The Insider decides to switch its attention from Crowe's dilemma to concentrate on Pacino and the subsequent corporate meddling of a different kind that arises from the case. It mirrors the way Crowe - having placed his existence on the line to give Pacino the story he wants - is left high and dry once the shit has hit the fan. It is probably not wholly coincidental that the film opens and closes with Pacino, not Crowe....although it is still the latter who etches himself deepest into the very heart of The Insider.

For his first directorial outing since the near-perfect Heat in late 1995, Michael Mann took an article from Vanity Fair magazine entitled "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and used the true story as the basis of this slightly dramatised tale of corporate cover-ups and deception in the tobacco industry.

Dramatised. That word again. Is it true or is it all made up? No, it's dramatised. It's both and it's neither. In some cases, alterations of fact and inventions of events and people that never took place and who never existed has little negligible effect on the finished article. The Insider, on the other hand, rests much of its dramatic and emotional power on something which - come the final credits - apparently differs from the actual reality.

Now, call me stupid, but taking 2-and-a-half hours to tell a very detailed and intense story (keeping all names intact) only to declare come the closing reel words to the effect of "oh, it didn't really turn out like this....the opposite happened " seems pointless, and detracts from what is an otherwise masterful movie. "Huh?", you may find yourself saying, when it's over. "Why?", even.

It looks stunning however, dominated by Mann's beloved blues and greys, and sounds equally marvellous. The score plays an integral part in proceedings, ranging from ambient noodlings to full-blown nerve jangling flourishes, while remaining comprehensively un-Hollywood in its style.

The main problem with the sound is the muted nature of the dialogue, which seems to have been buried just a little too deep in the audio mix. Turning the volume up to almost double the norm only improves things slightly.