The Insider

Michael Mann's The Insider is about a decision by CBS not to run a segment on 60 Minutes.

The network elected not to air a Mike Wallace interview of Jeffrey Wigand, former head of research with Brown & Williamson Tobacco. The reason? Fear of a lawsuit from the cigarette manufacturer after Wigand "exposed" the "trade secret" of how tobacco companies lace their products with deadly toxins to enhance the effects of über-addictive nicotine.

The Insider is based on a true story and all its characters are based on actual people; some of the scenes and dialogue are fictionalized. This true story, "dramatized for the purposes of entertainment" and not 100 percent factual, has Brown & Williamson and CBS-especially producer Don Hewitt (who The Insider portrays as a consummate sell-out)-upset and making a big stink.

Controversy aside: The Insider is a well-acted, evenly directed and surprisingly suspenseful film that deserves to be named one of the year's best. Al Pacino gives a masterful, subtle (that means no "Hoo-ah!") turn as a heroic television producer. Russell Crowe plays the part of Wigand, displaying impressive torment and rage. Christopher Plummer steals the show, however, with his eloquent impersonation of Wallace-he aces the mannerisms and persona of the aged reporter.

The Insider took Mann months to shoot, but the time was worth it; a Stanley Kubrick-esque obsession with detail permeates the film. Mann has a lesser reputation as a perfectionist (notably seen in his previous film Heat-one shootout scene is so well-edited and so well- covered it leaves the viewer stunned). In The Insider, sharp editing and dialogue make Pacino's phone calls to newspaper editors as intense as Heat's gunplay.

Individual scene edits carry The Insider, but the good editing stops at the scene level-this movie is more than two-and-a-half hours long. Not as bad as James Cameron, but nonetheless an excessive lack of restraint on Mann's part. Oh yes, and the music-operetta overtures and a screeching score would have been welcome on the cutting room floor.

But even with its faults, The Insider is the best look at television and corruption since Network first questioned the ethics of the TV media. It's a good thing that some of these events are fictionalized, because CBS looks so bereft of journalistic ethics you'd think they'd been watching Fox.

-By Martin Barna