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2 internautes sur 2 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
ah! the world of journalism
This is the true story of Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a man who signed a confidentiality agreement before getting fired from a big tobacco company. Hotshot *60 minutes* producer Bergman (Al Pacino) asks Wigand to decipher some technical documents, and soon realizes there's a bigger story hiding inside Wigand.
On top of that, Wigand is recruited to testity in...
Publié le Aoû 5 2007 par Francesca Jourdan
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I kept waiting for something to justify the build up.
Full of portentious music and camera angles, The Insider plays like a story that is about to reveal a mystical, transforming truth, or at least something shocking. But that's the problem. The movie isn't about a network news show cow-towing to financial pressures. Sure, that story is here, but it never becomes the major focus of the film. And the movie isn't about one...
Publié le Avril 28 2004 par Maine Writer
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2 internautes sur 2 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
ah! the world of journalism, Aoû 5 2007
This is the true story of Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a man who signed a confidentiality agreement before getting fired from a big tobacco company. Hotshot *60 minutes* producer Bergman (Al Pacino) asks Wigand to decipher some technical documents, and soon realizes there's a bigger story hiding inside Wigand.
On top of that, Wigand is recruited to testity in Mississippi for a case that claims cigarettes *are* addictive.
The *60 minutes* piece will eventually be pulled because of corporate pressure. Wigand deals with his personal dilemma, and Bergman battles the corporation.
Both men will struggle against Big Tobacco's attempts to silence them and against the CBS television network's cowardly complict preference of putting money as a higher priority over the truth.
True colors of journalism are shown throughout the film. Director Michael Mann has done a great job portraying journalistic realism. The actors are marvelous, no exception.
An emotionally intense drama which reveals the consequences of standing up for the truth.
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1 internautes sur 1 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
What's Wrong With This Picture?, Fév 2 2004
For the most part this movie is superbly acted and well filmed. Russell Crowe, one of the best things that ever happened to Australia, is perfectly cast as Jeffrey Wigand, the scientist whistle-blower who is fired from Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company. Christopher Plummer actually resembles the character he plays, Mike Wallace of CBS Sixty Minutes. Al Pacino should tone down his shouting performance a notch or two, however. The movie got all kinds of nominations for Oscar awards when it was released.So what's wrong with this picture? The same thing that's wrong with another Russell Crowe movie "A Beautiful Mind" and Oliver Stone's earlier movie about the Kennedy assassination. They are all--what an awful word--"docudramas." The viewer is told as the credits go up at the end of this movie that some things have been fictionalized for the "sake of drama." This is a cruel irony since the movie is all about integrity. Surely the "real" story of the cruel joke tobacco companies have played on an unwitting public for years would have been enough to intrigue an audience and sustain a hard-hitting documentary. The movie is so well-done. I just wish I knew what is real and what isn't here--if we only had a fire wall between fiction and investigative journalism/movies in this country-- surely we are sophisticated enough to handle such a division.
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1 internautes sur 1 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile :
Murky story - but the leads take us in, Janv. 26 2004
Russel Crowe is Jeff Wigand, "The Insider", a research scientist for a cigarette manufacturer who goes up against his boss. When the flick opens, we see his well manicured family and his pretty life, but we have the sense that it's already over for him. He's clearly had enough of his employers, but knows he could lose a severance package negotiated to keep him silent about the workings of his ex-employer's marketing tactics. Al Pacino as Lowell Bergman, a producer for 60 Minutes proves, at about the same time, that he's not afraid to put his personal safety on the line for the story. Christopher Plummer is a surprisingly effective Mike Wallace, one of a small strike force of tele-journalists fearless in the face of intimidation from anybody. In the "Insider", they come together in a sort of manipulative morality tale about corporate greed and nicotine. Though there's no secret about the health risks of chain smoking, Wigand threatens to expose the industry's dark secret - that they actively design cigarettes to be more addictive. Unfortunately, Wigand's attempts to expose his former employers - through both legal action and through an expose on "60 Minutes" make him a target. Losing his severance package and soon his pretty family, Wigand's life is turned upside down. On Bergman's end, his efforts to air Wigand's expose are morphed from a complex story involving well-meaning journalists rendered powerless by questionable law - into a simpler story of noble journalist Davids against the might of corporate Goliaths (the flick shamelessly touts "corporate" as if it were a profane word, as in "did CBS News cave in to CBS Corporate?"). Mike Wallace and Don Hewitt, who probably had no power to resist CBS's initial ban against the Wigand story, are now seen as craven corporate lackeys (Wallace, who is fearless in the face of an Hizbollah bigwig early in the movie, cowers at the thought that he may be reduced to doing NPR if he disobeys orders). Played by Pacino, Bergman is the hero here (the script seems to credit him for leaking the banned story to the print media, even though WSJ is credited with doing it themselves), while Wigand is well meaning to the point of martyrdom. Unfortunately, this account of dirty tricks and cigarette makers is undone by its own murky paranoia - just how do these menacing guys manage to hold onto their political power the way nicotine holds onto smokers? Least convincing is speed with which the editorial staff at "60 Minutes" caves into corporate pressure to dump the story. It's never really explained how guys who regularly face-off against government bureaucrats, corporate honchos and terrorist leaders in the darkest corners of the new century crumble like a house of cards before big tobacco. The film, by never explaining the stranglehold of the cigarette industry implicitly supports them - that the "big" in big-tobacco is a myth created by the self-righteous of the media and government to explain their own inability to deal with America's nicotine problems. For all its murkiness, the film remains evocative, a collection of great scenes, like Crowe's epiphany in a hotel room, and Pacino's giving a hotel attendant long-distance instruction in the art of talking like Al Pacino. Remember this as the movie in which TV action fixture Wings Hauser played a lawyer for the tobacco industry.
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Very Pleased, Sep 29 2009
Product arrived in excellent shape and the quality of the DVD was very sharp. Very satisfied.
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"I'm an Insider Too", Jui 2 2004
We all know that it's sometimes worth it to take a second look at a film you may have been dismissive of before. To say, I didn't "get" THE INSIDER the first time I saw it would be something of an understatement. I didn't see it as all that revelatory--"'Big tobacco' corrupt?" "Big media craven?" "Mike Wallace has an ego and a temper on the scale of Mt. St. Helens?" Quelle surprise! There was nothing particularly new about all that. In fact, the only big news was that Russell Crowe was going the DeNiro route and altering his physical appearance for the sake of his art. (OK, OK, not as extreme but he did put on a few pounds and donned a less than flattering grey toupe.) Maybe it was something I ate that first time, though, 'cause the second time around, I have to admit, it was pretty riveting. This time out, I found the moral dilemmas facing Crowe's whistleblower and Pacino's muckraker TV producer pretty darn fascinating--despite the fact that I knew how it was all going to turn out. Oh yeah, and I finally got the fact that the title is supposed to be a little ambiguous and that,yes, Pacino's Lowell Bergman character is an "insider" too. Sometimes I'm a little slow, but eventually, if I'm lucky, I catch on. THE INSIDER is a quietly powerful and effective film. Apparently, it didn't manage to convince Russell Crowe to quit smoking, but--as a morality tale and as sheer drama--it's still pretty darn effective.
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The Insider (1999), Mai 23 2004
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora, Philip Baker Hall, Lindsay Crouse, Debi Mazar.
Running Time: 158 minutes.
Rated R for language and some violence.Loosely based on a similar real-life tobacco industry media predicament, "The Insider" is an honest, taut portrayal of how one man's willingness to comply with the media and speak his mind can change more things than he could ever imagine. Al Pacino gives his best performance outside of "The Godfather II" and "Scarface", depicting the veteran "60 Minutes" television show producer Lowell Bergman, who is on a hot trail of a story involving the corrupt tobacco industries. Russell Crowe, fresh off fine performances in "L.A. Confidential" and "Courage Under Fire", plays an insider source for Bergman after he loses his job as a prominent tobacco company excecutive. When these two men join forces in a battle against the cigarette production and distribution company, Jeffery Wigand (Crowe) has his world turned outside down with death threats and media coverage. Believing that Bergman has set up him to fall, he later realizes that both not only want to save their reputations, but they are striving for the same goal--to communicate the truth. Pacino is in rare, spectacular form, while Crowe is more than adequate as the counterpart. Supporting the lead stars is Plummer as the incomporable Mike Wallace, portraying the strong television icon to near perfection. Although over two-and-a-half hours, "The Insider" moves at a quick pace and keeps the audience guessing both Wigand and Bergman's next moves. Michael Mann shoots and cuts a brilliant, beautiful piece of visual artistry, solidifying himself as one of the top directors heading into the next century. A masterpiece of intellect and honor, setting itself a part from many other media-dramas of its kind. Exhilerating and captivating.
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I kept waiting for something to justify the build up., Avril 28 2004
Full of portentious music and camera angles, The Insider plays like a story that is about to reveal a mystical, transforming truth, or at least something shocking. But that's the problem. The movie isn't about a network news show cow-towing to financial pressures. Sure, that story is here, but it never becomes the major focus of the film. And the movie isn't about one man and his crisis of conscience or character. Again, we are shown the thin, superficial layers of this personal struggle, but not much more. Instead, the movie drills into, and focuses on relentlessly, the "secret" this "insider" wants to tell the world, but can't. And that point is driven home in so many different ways--as if Jeffrey Wygand (who I suppose is the main character) has something extraordinarily interesting and devastating to reveal, and that the world will change as a result of him going public. That's the tragedy of The Insider. Because now, a few years of perspective later, we realize that Wygand's inside story is both obvious and relatively unimportant. Sure, it caused some big tobacco settlements to be struck, but it packs relatively little dramatic punch. And so all this pomp and circumstance about his revelations and their impact on society at large has no legs. And the loud, pretentious soundtrack, the slow motion effects, the bombastic set-up, well, it's a set-up for disappointment. It's a bit like setting your home movies to a Wagnerian opera. I gave the movie a three because I thought Pacino's and Plummer's performances, and to a slightly lesser extent, Crowe's, merited it. Plus, being inside the conflict within CBS was fascinating.
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SLICK, MESMERIZING THRILLER WITH BIG BOLD QUESTIONS., Avril 21 2004
If there ever was a list of utterly absorbing films, this would be right up there. What a riveting piece of drama, from Lisa Gerrard's haunting score to the mesmerizing cinematography of Mike Mann in form. Al Pacino and Russel Crowe have such intensity you almost feel your veins pop. The conspiracy theory tinged sub-themes are thrillers as it is (big network, big tyke tobacco players, big journalist, strong-arm tactics of corporations, marital relations amidst stressful jobs, etc.) but their rendition in the immaculate screenplay make them even more powerful! A word about the DVD. Although it has a couple of interesting extras, including glimpses of some of the real characters, the DD 5.1-only soundtrack is a tad disappointing. Except for a couple of early scenes, one in a cafeteria and one with rain, there is virtually no sound in the rear channels. Not up to today's standards for 5.1 sound. Hopefully a newer version of the DVD would have a better transfer. Regardless of the minor gripe, the film itself is fantastic. I'd recommend this as a library item in a blink.
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Michael Mann's Masterpiece, Avril 6 2004
From the first image, the viewer is immediately thrust into a situation with no explanation and no dialogue. It takes a few seconds before it is revealed to be a blindfolded man who is being driven through a busy, noisy Middle Eastern city. What's going on here? Who is he? The rush of noises and images is an assault on the senses. The blindfolded man, Lowell Bergman (Pacino), is here to set up an interview with the Sheik for 60 Minutes. Michael Mann introduces Bergman in this fashion to grab the audience's attention with a single detail and then gradually expands out to the bigger picture, which symbolizes the film's structure and its style. The events in the picture are created from a single event and everything grows from that one incident.This scene establishes the no-nonsense tone of the movie and the professionalism of the characters. Lowell Bergman is a worldly man who is not afraid to speak his mind. He is willing to go, literally, blind into a potentially dangerous situation to get what he wants. He is a consummate professional who knows how to handle things: the quintessential Mann protagonist. In a way, the professional nature of Mann's characters is reminiscent of the no-nonsense characters that populate the films of Howard Hawks and Don Siegel. Jeffrey Wigand (Crowe)'s introduction is also important in how it establishes his character. He is shown in the foreground of the scene but is out of focus. There is a party going on in the background that is in focus but we cannot hear it. Wigand is almost obscured by the party goers who are oblivious to him. Wigand is all alone in his office which establishes right away that he is an isolated protagonist. This is reinforced by the shot of him in his office: it is dark, he is alone, very quiet. While the family life scenes in Heat felt weak and under-developed, they are much stronger and are more crucial to the narrative in The Insider. It doesn't hurt that he's got an excellent cast here: Lindsay Crouse, Diane Venora, Christopher Plummer, Philip Baker Hall, et al. One of Mann's strengths is how he conveys expositional dialogue. This is very difficult without boring an audience conditioned to tune out during long, talky scenes. However, a scene between Bergman and his co-workers over lunch works because of how Mann shoots and edits the scene. They are sitting around talking and brainstorming about Wigand and the danger of interviewing him. There is a lot of exposition and facts about tobacco being thrown around but Mann uses multiple camera set-ups and has such talented actors speaking the dialogue that it keeps everything interesting. There are a lot of different camera angles in this scene but the editing is not done in a rapid-fire haphazard fashion like in a Michael Bay film where no shot lasts for more than thirty seconds. There is the feeling that Mann knows what an edit means and that they are not intrusive but rather allow the scene to flow organically. The scene between Bergman and Wigand in the Japanese restaurant is the centerpiece of the film; much in the same way that the Lecktor/Graham conversation in Manhunter and the Hanna/McCauley restaurant scene in Heat are important because they all represent the meeting of the driving forces of their respective films. The characters meet, verbally spar with each other, convey, either implicitly or explicitly, their worldview and most important sort things out between each other. The dialogue in this scene really crackles and pops with intensity. The DVD is a bit of a disappointment. While the transfer is top notch and the audio is fantastic, the lack of extras is a missed opportunity to be sure. This film deserves the deluxe Criterion Collection treatment. Mann has been revisiting some of his films lately, with a new edition of Manhunter with an audio commentary and new 2-DVD special editions of Heat and Ali on the horizon. Who knows?
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Widespread Public Awareness., Janv. 20 2004
To be cinematographically loyal to a Real Life Story is impossible, and this is because the only real truth to any story, is the point of view of its protagonist. Once an author takes the facts and expose them in any particular media, that point of view becomes a third person in the events, the objectiveness of those facts then become subjective to the intuition of the author. Now, the intention of that author has to be honorable, and that is: to honor the Truth of that story he or she is trying to tell, as accurate and close to the point of view of the people that went trough those events, that way the beholder will take that information through a third, and will judge it accurate, inaccurate or hypocrite, whatever that information is objectively right, or subjectively wrong. All the author need is: first hand information, objectiveness away from a partial judgment, a real understanding of that story, plus a real care for it, and confidence in a deep research work to be credit with. This is as close as you can hope to get, then you can digest it.
When The Insider began shooting, Jeffery Wigand was still on litigation against Big Tobacco. Many of the specific information couldn't be disclose to Michael Mann and his crew, so he and Eric Roth took license and approach the story as close to the emotional truth of the protagonist with the intention to portrait the long way towards redemption and inner strength, a docudrama including the personal side of it. In no easy sense Jeffrey Wigand is a hero, but an ordinary man in extraordinary conditions, in the other hand, Lowell Bergman is an idealistic man who's moral professional ethics are about to be past over. Corruption, manipulation, psychological and financial aggression, personal interests, are the issues against these two man are tested with. How they survive and manage their way through victory, is a real statement of Integrity and Moral Truth.
Based on a article published by Vanity Fair called, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Insider is pure journalism language. The always interesting Michael Mann, narrates with integrity and courage, the events about two-man disclosure campaign against Tobacco giant Brown and Williamson, meaning absolute power in every sense. Jeffrey Wigand is set into despair when Big Tobacco C.E.O.'s threatens him with a massive sued in case he doesn't sign an extension of the confidentiality agreement he never intended to dishonor. And it is here when Lowell Bergman (a producer for 60 minutes), enters his counterpart to attempt the exposition of the real Truth of the Cigarette industry, and that is: cigarettes are a delivery devise for nicotine, light it up, put it in your mouth, and it will get you fix. Jeffrey Wigand's life will crush against this sons of bit', and Lowell Bergman will be betrayed by his own office and friends when C.B.S. Corporate pushes hard on C.B.S. News to not go with the story. Lowell and Wigand will endure, but after a nerve breaking battle of a life time, at the end the exclusive is lost, but the Story will be cast, and integrity and peace of mind will find its way again in the strong Jeffrey Wigand, and the audacious Lowell Bergman.
Michael Mann gives you a lesson in cinema, his directorial skills are proved in this masterpiece, keen, powerful, and honest, just brilliant and much close to the real Truth as you can hope to get. The great Al Pacino portraits Lowell Bergman in an intense canvas of human will, excellent. Russell Crowe performance is absolutely impressive, all the complicated ways of Jeffrey Wigand, his despair, his moral debate of disclose this much important information, his emotiveness in times of no hope, all this is perfectly done by Crowe in his highly inspiring work (Actually, the best performance of 1999. Crowe lost the Academy Award against Kevin Spacey for his also great performance in American Beauty). Veteran actor Christopher Plummer also gives an excellent performance as the legendary and arrogant Mike Wallace (Wallace actually protested for this, but think about it, after all the accolades he has receive in his long career; Could it be possible that he just turned a little too cocky over the decades? So many people kissing your behind for so much time, must have some effect in your personality. Isn't that just so unfair Mike?). The rest of the cast is also great.
A perfect adapted screen play, a beautiful and accurate photography, and an amazing music score by the great Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke, brings more emotion to the story (other musical credits includes: Graeme Revell, Massive Attack, etc), unforgettable. The Insider is that magnificent movie, that the Academy so often tends to past over and forget when then moment of Truth (in most cases, the best movie of the year), even with its 7 nominations, the Insider didn't get one single award, another huge oversight (Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock never in their life time received an Academy Award for Best Director, such a thing completely discredits this highly prestigious Award). Never mind.
The DVD is good, a quality visual transferring and a fine 5.1 Dolby Digital are great, the problem is that the DVD lacks of extras, just a production Featurette, the Trailer, and a Scene Comparison with the original script, is all that there is. I would have love to see the entire 60 minutes original Interview, and a 25 minutes Making Of, any way, the transferring is great, and that's all that matters. A must for your DVD collection.
Interesting enough is that the movie talks about the Cigarette Industry in many ways, and goes even further with the manipulation surrounding it's addictive product, but never in the film one single person is shown smoking a cigarette.
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