Review of The Insider (1999) by Songeehn C — 10 Feb 2012

The Insider represents the best of a Michael Mann film. It is cool, steeped in reality and amazingly suspenseful yet manages to avoid the emotional distance and machismo that he often employs. The reason for this success is surely that it is based on a real story and therefore deals with real characters.

The film is loosely structured in two parts, the first dealing the Russell Croweââ,¬â¢s Wigand, his decision to whistle blow, and the personal toll paid, and the second with Al Pacinoââ,¬â¢s Bergman, and his attempts to get the story onto the air. For Pacino, the role of the smart, powerful, fast talking news man is not necessarily a stretch, though he plays the character with a finesse that is often lacking in his later work. While we do see his character wheeling and dealing, we also see him up against powers greater than he; this is not the all powerful Pacino role, full of vitriol and bluster - though he does judiciously employ these. More impressive however is Crowe. As played by him, Wigand comes off as a smart, calculating, intensely proud man who starts whistle blowing not from some deep seated ethical position but instead as retribution for being capriciously fired. By allowing the character to have different dimensions, to become angry, confused, belligerent, that is to say to allow the character to be more than simply a "hero", Mann and Crowe ensure that we care about what happens to Wigand. Adding to this are an array of side characters, all played by quality actors, all of whom ââ,¬â once again by virtue of being based on actual people seem fully fleshed out. Take Mike Wallace who is given time to have a speech about his legacy, or the D.A. who is likewise given scope to launch a tirade against the tobacco industry lawyer. In a lesser film, these aspects would have either have been entirely omitted or given to the central actors. Here they are used to provide texture and reality to the world these characters inhabit.

While this could merely have been an issues based film delving into tobacco and the media, Mann manages to transcend these themes by giving us real characters who are fully developed, superbly acted, and brilliantly realised.