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I don’t pretend to know what it says about the collective hive mentality we so casually refer to as “culture,” or perceive even a hint of whether the significance is good or bad, when The News becomes news. But I don’t have to be hit over the head with a can of Dan Rather’s hairspray to realize that director Michael Mann’s latest film The Insider, which depicts the behind-the-scenes machinations in 1995 when “60 Minutes” took on both Big Tobacco and its own internal cross-purposes, is one of the most gripping real-life dramas recently committed to celluloid.
Al Pacino is Lowell Bergman, fear-nothing producer for august CBS newsgod Mike Wallace (played effectively by Christopher Plummer), who stumbles on the scoopof his life when he learns that Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a former Brown & Williamson scientist he wants to hire as consultant on another story, was once privy to secrets that could bankrupt the tobacco industry if made public. Wigand’s entire life -- job, home, wife, children, reputation, and even his freedom -- are placed in jeopardy when he consents to tell his story to Wallace and the “60 Minutes” cameras, only to have the segment pulled when CBS corporate honchos worry that a costly legal battle with the the Seven Dwarves -- the heads of the cigarette companies -- could hamper the network’s rumored sale to Westinghouse.
More compelling than a dozen John Grisham or Tom Clancy novels, The Insider holds you by the throat for over two-and-a-half hours, wasting nary a minute. Thanks to a taut script by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Apollo 13), Mann’s straightforward but refreshing direction, and Oscar-worthy performances from Pacino and Crowe (who did a Raging Bull weight-gain routine to portray the older, more rotund Wigand), you’d think these people were dealing with nuclear secrets rather than recipes for Virginia Slims and Nielsen ratings. Don’t miss it. A
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