The Insider
USA 1999
Reviewed by Mark Kermode
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
The US, the present. Lowell Bergman, producer of Mike Wallace's segments for the news programme 60 Minutes on CBS, receives anonymously sent documents concerning tobacco research. He approaches Jeffrey Wigand, recently fired from research and development at tobacco giant Brown and Williamson (B&W), to interpret the findings and senses Wigand has a story to tell. B&W threatens to withdraw Wigand's medical benefits unless he signs a further confidentiality agreement. Despite this, Wigand tells 60 Minutes on camera several incriminating facts: the company deliberately manipulated nicotine levels in cigarettes; an additive called comaurin was used after it had been shown to cause cancer in rats; cigarette companies knew they were in the business of "nicotine delivery" even though the seven CEOs of the biggest tobacco companies (including B&W president Thomas Sandefur) swore before an April 1994 congressional hearing that they did not believe nicotine to be addictive.
After receiving death threats, Wigand accepts bodyguards into his home. As his marriage collapses, Wigand's reputation is smeared by a B&W-funded investigation. Wigand travels to Mississippi to give a deposition in the state's ongoing case against the tobacco industry, even though a Kentucky ruling forbids him to do so. As 60 Minutes prepares to air its story, CBS lawyer Helen Caperelli warns of "tortious interference", a legal precedent which may endanger CBS for encouraging Wigand to break his confidentiality agreement. When the story is aired without Wigand's interview, Bergman leaks information to the New York Times which accuses CBS of spiking the story to avoid damaging a merger deal with Westinghouse. After extracts from Wigand's deposition are made public and his smearing is widely debunked, Wigand's interview appears unexpurgated on 60 Minutes.
Review
"There is no question," wrote journalist Marie Brenner in her head-turning Vanity Fair article 'The Man Who Knew Too Much', "that [Jeffrey] Wigand's presence in the tobacco wars is an accident, without grand design." There is also little question that few film-makers could fashion an engrossing thriller around the complex web of deceit which surrounds the modern tobacco industry, and fewer still could do so without recourse to easily discernible heroic central figures, pitiable victims or the reduction of the story to simple plot points. That Michael Mann has resisted the temptation to dumb down this material for The Insider reaffirms his position as one of the most important and intelligent directors currently working in mainstream cinema. He has created a tense psychological suspenser as complex and uncompromising as it is engaging and enthralling. It is, in short, a masterpiece, a brilliant dissection of recent US politics and the media by a scalpel-sharp screen sensibility.
Flying in the face of accepted movie law which states real events must be drastically simplified for on-screen use, The Insider's edgy screenplay (by Mann and Eric Roth) sticks surprisingly close to the rambling, nitty-gritty facts outlined in Brenner's original article. Proudly stretching towards the three-hour mark that few films genuinely merit, The Insider remains, brisk, brave and ballsy enough to allow events to speak for themselves. It's indeed a surprise to learn the one or two overtly 'dramatic' moments which appear to have been concocted for the benefit of the viewer (Bergman's midnight calls and subsequent anonymous hotel meeting with Wigand; Wigand's last-minute arrival at the Mississippi courthouse) are lifted directly from fact. Real names, rather than the customary legally protective pseudonyms, are used throughout, lending The Insider a cool air of credibility so often lacking in latter-day political potboilers. One is tempted to compare it to All the President's Men (1976), but that hardly does service to The Insider's brash effrontery. After all, everyone knew that Nixon was corrupt and had resigned by the time Alan Pakula's movie hit the screens. He was, therefore, a sitting duck, while Mann's target (the tobacco corporations) is still powerful and on the move.
Eschewing any action set-pieces (other than the unconnected opening salvo showing producer Bergman negotiating with Middle-Eastern militiamen), Mann's direction expands on the paradoxically intimate use of widescreen showcased to such involving effect in Heat. He zeroes in on the facial and physical convolutions of characters locked in intense conversation, finding action in the minutiae of apparent inaction. Pacino's dark features drift in and out of shadow, exquisitely choreographed by Dante Spinotti's cinematography which treats the landscape of human features and inhuman cityscapes with the same sense of awe. Rising to the challenge of such close-quarter encounters, Pacino plays the éminence grise to the hilt, relishing a part for which he is perfect in terms of physique, charisma and reputation.
More startling, however, is the transformation of Russell Crowe, the formerly lithe star of such muscular vehicles as Romper Stomper. Here he seems to have shrunk in height and ballooned in girth, metamorphosing from the glamorous thug cop he played in L.A. Confidential into the bumbling, harried picture of awkwardness trapped at the centre of this infernal feud. Whether it is his eyes, constantly avoiding the gaze of both camera and other characters; his fingers, fidgeting incessantly, or his speech patterns, broken into a form of Morse code, Crowe brings Wigand to the screen in all his unlikeable splendour, resisting any temptation to make him any more than a man manoeuvred into actions with accidentally heroic consequences.
The supporting performances are also uniformly handsome, from Christopher Plummer's ever-so-slightly slimy Mike Wallace and Michael Gambon's satanically smooth-tongued B&Wpresident to Gina Gershon's spiky corporate lawyer and Diane Venora's increasingly exasperated (but never caricatured) wife. What a pleasure, too, to see the vastly underrated Wings Hauser getting the chance to flex his spectacular lantern jaw as the attorney from hell. Add to this Mann's usual sensual use of music and The Insider ought to walk off with a basket of Oscars in March. The fact that it won't says more about the state of the international film industry and the ticket-buying/cigarette-smoking public than it does about Michael Mann and his movie. Both are magnificent: they should be proud to be outsiders.
Credits
- Director
- Michael Mann
- Producers
- Michael Mann
- Pieter Jan Brugge
- Screenplay
- Eric Roth
- Michael Mann
- Based on the Vanity Fair article The Man Who Knew Too Much by Marie Brenner
- Director of Photography
- Dante Spinotti
- Music
- Pieter Bourke
- Lisa Gerrard
- ©Touchstone Pictures
- Production Companies
- Touchstone Pictures presents a Mann/Roth production a Forward Pass picture
- Co-producer
- Michael Waxman
- Line Producers
- Israel:
- Avi Kleinberger
- Shlomo Urbach
- Associate Producers
- Gusmano Cesaretti
- Kathleen M. Shea
- Production Associate
- Carlo Bernard
- Production Supervisors
- Sherry Marshall
- New York:
- Monica Levinson
- Abaco Bahamas:
- Tim Healey
- Production Co-ordinators
- M. Michelle Nishikawa
- New York:
- Shirley Davis
- Abaco Bahamas:
- Ginny Warner
- Israel:
- Edna Rozen Vaux
- Production Manager
- Israel:
- Adi Shoval
- Unit Production Managers
- Stephen Lim
- Arthur Schaefer Jr
- Site Manager
- Israel:
- Sigura Meir
- Supervising Location Managers
- Bill Bowling
- Janice Polley
- Location Managers
- New York:
- Trish Adlesic
- Israel:
- Gil Alon
- Farkad Mahamid
- Berkeley:
- Gail Stempler
- Location Consultant
- Abaco Bahamas:
- Maria Chavez
- Post-production Supervisor
- Erica L. Hiller
- Assistant Directors
- Michael Waxman
- Julie Herrin
- Jody Spilkoman
- Thomas B. Van Der Woude
- New York:
- Patrick J. Mangan
- Israel:
- Itai Tamir
- Daniel Oron
- Script Supervisors
- Julie Pitkanen
- New York:
- Eva Z. Cabrera
- Israel:
- Revital Tzimering
- Casting
- Bonnie Timmermann
- Associate:
- Alison E. McBryde
- Israel:
- Yael Aviv
- ADR Voice:
- L.A. MadDogs
- Scenario Co-ordinators
- Susan Hollander
- Barbara Smith
- Camera Operators
- Gary Jay
- James Muro
- Steadicam Operator
- James Muro
- Visual Effects Supervisor
- Chris Watts
- Digital Compositing
- CFC/MVFX
- Travis Baumann
- Matt Dessero
- Fortunato Frattasio
- Janet Yale
- Plate Photography
- Dream Quest Images
- Jeffrey Burks
- Erika Wangberg
- Digital Matte Paintings
- Matte World Digital
- Craig Barron
- Brett Northcutt
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- John Gray
- Foreman:
- Terry King
- Snow Effects
- Snow Business, Inc.
- David Crownshaw
- Video/Computer Graphics Supervisor
- Liz Radley
- Computer Graphics
- Ted Haigh
- Model Maker
- Ron Mendell
- Supervising Art Director
- Marjorie McShirley
- Art Directors
- Kentucky:
- James E. Tocci
- New York:
- John Kasarda
- Israel:
- Avi Avivi
- Set Designers
- Lynn Christopher
- Kelly Hannafin
- Darrell L. Wigh
- Key Set Decorator
- Nancy Haigh
- Set Decorators
- Los Angeles:
- Chris Spellman
- New York:
- Beth Kushnick
- Israel:
- Miguel Merkin
- Sharon Shevach
- Shmulik Ben Shalom
- Israel Scenic Artist
- Ruti Reichenstein
- Costume Designers
- Anna Sheppard
- Associate:
- Christopher Lawrence
- Wardrobe Supervisors
- New York:
- Susan J. Wright
- Cheryl Kilbourne-Kimpton
- Department Head Make-up
- John Caglione Jr
- Make-up Artist
- Bill Myer
- Special Make-up Artist
- Greg Cannom
- Make-up Artist
- Israel:
- Eti Ben Nun
- Hair Designer
- Vera Mitchell
- Hairstylists
- Michael Moore
- Judith A. Cory
- Title Design
- Research Studios
- Neville Brody
- Title/Opticals
- Pacific Title/Mirage
- Additional Music
- Graeme Revell
- Orchestrations
- Scott Smalley
- Tim Simonec
- Executive in Charge of Music for The Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group
- Kathy Nelson
- Supervising Music Editor
- Curt Sobel
- Music Editors
- Bob Badami
- Thomas Milano
- Score Recordists
- Robert Fernandez
- John Kurlander
- Dan Wallin
- Music Consultant
- Mike Morrison
- Soundtrack
- "Tempest" by Lisa Gerrard, Madjid Khaladj, Pieter Bourke, performed by Lisa Gerrard, Pieter Bourke; "Uotaaref men elihabek" by J. Baird, F. Gari, performed by Casbah Orchestra; "Suffocate", "Night Stop", "Hot Shots" by/performed by Curt Sobel; "Litany" by/performed by Arvo Pärt; "Smokey Mountain Waltz" by/performed by Richard Gilks; "Iguazu" by/performed by Gustavo Santaolalla; "Armenia" by Blixa Bargeld, Alexander Hacke, J. Caffery, F.M. Strauss, Andrew Chudy, Mark Chung, performed by Einstürzende Neubauten; "Sacrifice" by/performed by Lisa Gerrard, Pieter Bourke; "Two or Three Things" by David Darling, Manfred Eicher, performed by David Darling; "Rites" by/performed by Jan Garbarek; "Safe from Harm (Perfecto Mix)" by Billy Cobham, Robert Del Naja, Grantley Marshall, Shara Nelson, Andrew Vowles, performed by Massive Attack
- Production Sound Mixer
- Lee Orloff
- Recordists
- Robert Renga
- Craig 'Pup' Heath
- Re-recording Mixers
- Andy Nelson
- Doug Hemphill
- Re-recording Engineer
- Denis St. Amand
- Supervising Sound Editors
- Gregg Baxter
- Gregory King
- Digital Sound Editorial Engineers
- Rob Nokes
- Philip Harrelson
- Dialogue Editors
- Stephanie Flack
- Mary Ruth Smith
- Darren King
- Sound Effects Editor
- Yann Delpuech
- ADR
- Recordist:
- David Lucarelli
- Mixer:
- Charlene Richards
- Editors:
- Nick Korda
- Linda Folk
- Foley
- Artists:
- Dan O'Connell
- John Cucci
- Recordist:
- Linda Lew
- Mixer:
- James Ashwill
- Supervising Editor:
- John Murray
- Editors:
- Donald Sylvester
- Dan Yale
- Military Technical Adviser
- Israel:
- Eitan Ivgy
- Consultants
- Lowell Bergman
- Marie Brenner
- Marine Co-ordinator
- Abaco Bahamas:
- Ricou Browning
- Cast
- Al Pacino
- Lowell Bergman
- Russell Crowe
- Jeffrey Wigand
- Christopher Plummer
- Mike Wallace
- Diane Venora
- Liane Wigand
- Philip Baker Hall
- Don Hewitt
- Lindsay Crouse
- Sharon Tiller
- Debi Mazar
- Debbie De Luca
- Stephen Tobolowsky
- Eric Kluster
- Colm Feore
- Richard Scruggs
- Bruce McGill
- Ron Motley
- Gina Gershon
- Helen Caperelli
- Michael Gambon
- Thomas Sandefur
- Rip Torn
- John Scanlon
- Lynne Thigpen
- Mrs Williams
- Hallie Kate Eisenberg
- Barbara Wigand
- Michael Paul Chan
- Norman the cameraman
- Linda Hart
- Mrs Wigand
- Robert Harper
- Mark Stern
- Nestor Serrano
- FBI Agent Robertson
- Pete Hamill
- NY Times reporter
- Wings Hauser
- tobacco lawyer
- Clifford Curtis
- Sheikh Fadlallah
- Renee Olstead
- Deborah Wigand
- Michael Moore
- himself
- Gary Sandy
- Sandefur's lawyer
- Willie C. Carpenter
- John Harris
- Paul Butler
- Charlie Phillips
- Jack Palladino
- himself
- Megan Odabash
- Sandra Sutherland
- Roger Bart
- Seelbach hotel manager
- Alan Desatti
- Hezbollah interpreter
- Sayed Badreya
- Hezbollah head gunman
- Chris Ufland
- Doug Oliver, FDA
- Doug McGrath
- private investigator
- Bill Sage
- intense young intern
- Joseph Hindy
- Baldo the editor
- Dennis Garber
- FBI agent 1
- Tim Grimm
- FBI agent 2
- Paul Perri
- geologist/FBI man
- Wanda De jesus
- geologist/FBI woman
- Robert Brink
- policeman
- V.J. Foster
- Bill Felling
- James Harper
- FBI agent 3
- Eyal Podell
- Lowell's son
- Breckin Meyer
- Sharon's son
- David Roberson
- John Telafarro
- Gregg E. Muravchick
- private security guard
- William P. Bradford II
- subpoena man
- David Carr
- local newscaster
- Ann Reskin
- Seelbach hotel desk clerk
- Claire Slemmer
- Edie Magnus
- Steve Salge
- Dan Rather
- Derrick Jones
- Mississippi reporter
- Donald F. Burbrink II
- B & W male security officer
- Vyto Ruginis
- junior lawyer
- George R. Parsons
- B & W uniformed security officer
- Isodine Loury
- Mississippi court stenographer
- Charlene Bosarge
- Mr Scrugg's assistant
- Saemi Nakamura
- Japanese waitress
- Ronal G. Yokley
- police detective
- Bob Lazarus
- stage manager
- Robert Ragno Jr
- photographer, New Media
- Alvin L. Welch
- judge
- Nathan Lewis Hill
- production assistant
- Paula Bisbikos
- Mike Wallace's assistant
- Christi Evans
- CBS news producer
- Knox Grantham White
- soundman
- Amy L. Caudill
- a student
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Buena Vista International (UK)
- 14,219 feet
- 157 minutes 59 seconds
- Dolby digital/Digital DTS sound/SDDS
- In Colour
- Prints by
- Technicolor
- Super 35 [2.35:1]