The Insider (1999)
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/Super 35 158m
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora, Philip Baker Hall, Lindsay Crouse, Gina Gershon, Michael Gambon, Colm Feore, Wings Hauser
Synopsis:
The producer of CBS's top news magazine, Sixty Minutes, stumbles across a source of inside information on the tobacco industry in the form of a sacked health adviser; he claims his company manipulated the drug nicotine to enhance its addictive potential.
Review:
A film in the tradition of Pakula's All the President's Men: from the headlines (Marie Brenner's Vanity Fair article) and following a slow and painstaking investigation through many reversals to an unostentatious conclusion. Mann deploys elements familiar in his work - solitary professional men with little time for a personal life, lush, arty music, deliberate pacing - but eschews the customary violence. One or two lapses aside (e.g. a stray boom early on), it is totally absorbing and draws superb performances from its cast.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/Super 35 158m
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora, Philip Baker Hall, Lindsay Crouse, Gina Gershon, Michael Gambon, Colm Feore, Wings Hauser
Synopsis:
The producer of CBS's top news magazine, Sixty Minutes, stumbles across a source of inside information on the tobacco industry in the form of a sacked health adviser; he claims his company manipulated the drug nicotine to enhance its addictive potential.
Review:
A film in the tradition of Pakula's All the President's Men: from the headlines (Marie Brenner's Vanity Fair article) and following a slow and painstaking investigation through many reversals to an unostentatious conclusion. Mann deploys elements familiar in his work - solitary professional men with little time for a personal life, lush, arty music, deliberate pacing - but eschews the customary violence. One or two lapses aside (e.g. a stray boom early on), it is totally absorbing and draws superb performances from its cast.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/Super 35 158m
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora, Philip Baker Hall, Lindsay Crouse, Gina Gershon, Michael Gambon, Colm Feore, Wings Hauser
Synopsis:
The producer of CBS's top news magazine, Sixty Minutes, stumbles across a source of inside information on the tobacco industry in the form of a sacked health adviser; he claims his company manipulated the drug nicotine to enhance its addictive potential.
Review:
A film in the tradition of Pakula's All the President's Men: from the headlines (Marie Brenner's Vanity Fair article) and following a slow and painstaking investigation through many reversals to an unostentatious conclusion. Mann deploys elements familiar in his work - solitary professional men with little time for a personal life, lush, arty music, deliberate pacing - but eschews the customary violence. One or two lapses aside (e.g. a stray boom early on), it is totally absorbing and draws superb performances from its cast.