The Insider
“The Insider” is one of the last films my grandfather and I watched in theatres together. We watched it shortly before the Oscars in 2000, and even then, Michael Mann’s film was a riveting piece of cinematic journalism. The film plays like one of Mann’s crime thrillers rather than a stodgy biopic, as Jeffrey Wigand and Lowell Bergman find their way down a rabbit hole of what Big Tobacco can do to lives, and reputations, when it is threatened. It is the last, great film of Mann’s (although I’ll admit to liking “Miami Vice,” and “Ali” was fine), and has a collision of acting work by Al Pacino, Russell Crowe and Christopher Plummer that remains a high water mark in all three careers.
The film begins with Bergman (Pacino) being driven, blindfolded, to a meeting place where he is to discuss a possible interview with Mike Wallace for “60 Minutes” with the Grand Ayatollah Fadlallah, and starting the film out on this story beat is an important one for Mann and co-writer Eric Roth as they dive into this story. Bergman lays out the reasons the Grand Ayatollah should do an interview with Wallace, and the reputation the show has when it comes to how it treats its subjects, and what they can gain by doing “60 Minutes.” We’re not only shown how Bergman and Wallace operate, but the stakes being set as they find themselves confronted by Wigand (Crowe), a former Brown & Williamson executive whom Bergman asks to consult on another story on the tobacco industry, but becomes a story unto himself as he feels compelled to discuss some of the reasons he was fired from that job, and why he was forced into signing a confidentiality agreement when he was fired.
Michael Mann had a remarkable run of three films in the 1990s with “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Heat” and “The Insider,” and I don’t know if it’s such a stretch to say each one got better. I love “Heat,” but “The Insider” is as confident a distillation of what Mann does as a filmmaker, and how he does it, as any filmmaker has made. That he did it at the service of a true story- albeit, one that ruffled a few feathers (including Mike Wallace, who was not terribly happy about his portrayal here)- rather than crime fiction speaks a lot to how strong of a director he was here, and how confident he was in his style. The film has that blue-tinted style that defined “Heat,” “Collateral” and “Miami Vice,” though Dante Spinotti’s images are less stylized, and more documentary-shot with handheld work along with artful setups. And the music in the film, by Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke, is as evocative, experimental and distinctive as any other soundtrack to a Mann film; I don’t know that I would rate it higher than “Heat” or “Mohicans,” but it’s perfectly suited for the film.
“The Insider,” like “Heat” before it, is a deluge of tremendous actors in roles both big and small, and it gives us great performances all around. Phillip Baker Hall as executive producer Don Hewitt is exactly what you expect from someone whose main interest is less the pursuit of truth and more the bottom line; watch how the winds change with the character when B&W threaten legal action if they air Wigand’s interview. In one, big scene where he is trying to get the point across to Wigand that it is in his best interests to sign a stricter confidentiality agreement, Michael Gambon is as far removed from the wise mentor Dumbledore as you can get- as with Wigand, we understand what he’s not saying loud and clear. As Wigand’s wife, Diane Verona is a pillar for him to be able to lean on when things start to heat up, but we cannot fault her when she leaves her as their lives spin out-of-control, and his family is threatened repeatedly. And there are plenty more great character actors in a variety of roles who all register, but the film ultimately comes down to Plummer (who captures the essence of who Wallace was perfectly, even if Wallace claims he pivoted towards protest on not airing the segment earlier than the film version does), Pacino and Crowe. This is a heck of a 1-2 punch for both actors- Pacino with his second straight performance for Mann following “Heat,” and Crowe as a follow-up to “L.A. Confidential” (we’ll ignore some of the clunkers he had in between)- and we see them both up against the ropes, but in different ways. This is probably Crowe’s best performance; so much of his work is internal and nuance and showing the pain and struggle Wigand is going through without saying it, and it’s a genuinely great piece of acting in a year where great acting was plentiful. As Bergman, Pacino feels very much like Pacino, and it’s probably the last time he was this good again, but as blustery as Pacino is allowed to be in the film, we also get the conflict he finds himself in, and the rebellious spirit people recount in Bergman and his career as a journalist before he got to “60 Minutes.” He and Crowe make a great team on this story.
The film is ultimately not about Wigand, Wallace and Bergman, though, but about the problematic nature of corporate-run media, how money can cause conflicts in journalistic integrity, and the balance that isn’t easy to maintain between the two. It’s a film as relevant now as it was then, and maybe more so as the old way of media conglomerates own news organizations has been (rightly) called into question as independent news has made a comeback, and sometimes overshadowed the major news media in its importance in people’s lives in how they get the news. Maybe we need to look at “The Insider,” and realize there’s something vital being said about the news industry we need to be vigilant of moving forward.
