Michael Mann Turned a ‘60 Minutes’ Story into a Masterful Thriller

In 1999, Michael Mann followed up Heat, a masterful depiction of the intersecting lives of two sides of the law in Los Angeles, with a quiet, thrilling drama about a tobacco industry cover-up. The film is The Insider, starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. Written by Mann alongside Eric Roth, the film is based on a 1996 Vanity Fair article penned by Marie Brenner. The article covers the story of Jeffrey Wigand, a Louisville, Kentucky chemistry teacher who worked with the Brown & Williamson tobacco company, and first blew the whistle in a public manner on the tobacco industry’s knowledge and subsequent cover-up of cancer-causing, addictive additives being put in cigarettes. It also covers the 60 Minutes coverage of the story, which itself became a major scandal for CBS, calling into question the journalistic integrity of a prestigious news organization.

While a movie based on a Vanity Fair article and a 60 Minutes story about tobacco executive legalese might not seem as immediately thrilling as a movie about bank robbers, Mann’s expert filmmaking, a knockout cast of actors, and thoughtful themes addressing corporate overreach and journalistic ethics make The Insider one of the best dramas of the 1990s.

The Insider

R

Drama

Biography

Thriller

In Michael Mann’s gripping thriller, a former tobacco executive turns whistleblower to uncover the industry’s deceitful practices. Russell Crowe delivers a powerful performance as the executive who risks everything to align with a determined journalist, played by Al Pacino. The film explores the intense battle against a powerful corporation and the heavy toll it takes on the lives involved.

Release Date

November 5, 1999

Director

Michael Mann

Cast

Russell Crowe , Al Pacino , Christopher Plummer , Diane Venora , Philip Baker Hall , Lindsay Crouse , Debi Mazar , Stephen Tobolowsky

Runtime

157 Minutes

Writers

Marie Brenner , Eric Roth , Michael Mann

‘The Insider’ Contains Terrific Performances From Stars Russell Crowe and Al Pacino

Mann’s searing drama is packed wall-to-wall with talented performers. Crowe, relatively early in his stardom, steps into a lead role in which he completely disappears into a character over 20 years his senior. It was a risky move for a rising star, but ultimately a successful one as Crowe embodies the principled, ethical, analytical Jeffrey Wigand perfectly. The performance garnered Crowe an Academy Award nomination, and he would follow it up with a stunning transformation into Maximus, the lead role in Ridley Scott‘s Gladiator, one year later.

Crowe is tasked with playing a fairly reserved character thrust into a national spotlight, and all the paranoia and discomfort that comes with it. He is more than up to the task, and working alongside Pacino, who gives an equally thrilling turn as 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman. Pacino, who starred in Mann’s previous film four years prior, reunited with the director for a performance that is a meticulous, dynamic portrait of a journalist in an ethical firestorm.

Along with the two lead actors, The Insider is rounded out with a massive ensemble including Christopher Plummer as legendary reporter Mike Wallace, Michael Gambon in a delightfully hammy performance as a Southern tobacco CEO, and frequent Mann collaborator Bruce McGill who, in essentially one scene, steals the film with an explosive turn as an emphatic trial lawyer. Philip Baker Hall, Dianne Venora, and Gina Gershon are a few more making up the deep bench of talented actors offered by The Insider.

Michael Mann Crafts a Powerful Mash-Up of a Legal and Journalism Thriller with ‘The Insider’

The legal side of The Insider mostly comprises the first half, where Wigand is dealing with litigation and increasing pressure from the tobacco industry due to his breaking of a non-disclosure agreement by speaking with the press. The film is not a typical legal drama, as there are no courtroom trials. Instead, it operates more like The Social Network or Oppenheimer in the sense that it focuses on the more behind-the-scenes aspects of the legal process, depositions and hearings, as opposed to jury trials with shocking Perry Mason reveals.

While The Insider is based in the world of television news, it sits among the great journalism movies like All the President’s Men and Spotlight, which also explore the power that good journalism can wield, and the responsibility a newsroom has to serve the public. There are two primary conflicts in this film. One of these sees a regular man going up against an insurmountable, corporate entity in Wigand’s struggle against the tobacco companies. The other is an internal conflict within the walls of the CBS newsroom, where journalists and producers clash over what to do with a story that is absolutely in the best interest of the viewing public, but not necessarily in the financial or legal interests of CBS.

The CBS corporate side eventually refused to air Wigand’s segment in its entirety, meaning that all the hell the tobacco industry had put him through was in vain. When Wigand, as many whistleblowers do, opened himself up to harassment, litigation, and death threats for the sake of getting the truth out there, a trusted resource for good-faith reporting left him high and dry. Bergman was dancing around Wigand for the entire movie, trying to pry information from him while also acknowledging and trying to be mindful of what the risk is for Wigand’s reputation and legal status. The film draws upon interesting ideas about the ethics of journalism, when the craft tilts from exposing the truth for truth’s sake into exploiting a source for the sake of a story.

The third act of the film centers largely around Bergman’s disillusionment with 60 Minutes as a brand, feeling permanently shaken by the events that unfolded with Wigand. While 60 Minutes did eventually air the Wigand interview in its entirety, it was too little, too late to satisfy Bergman’s integrity as a journalist. This final stretch of the film is a sobering examination of a man at a moral crossroads, questioning his own role in a complicit system that refused to stand for the values he thought he upheld professionally.

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Michael Mann’s Docu-Style Direction Gives ‘The Insider’ a Sense of Claustrophobic Urgency

The Insider is a quiet movie in concept, a story mostly told among men in rooms talking about legal documents and nicotine chemistry. Yet Mann’s masterful direction makes it feel as tense as the heists that appear in his crime-oriented films. The Insider abandons Mann’s previous style, which often contained beautiful, scenic wide shots of cityscapes, or in the case of The Last of the Mohicans, the Blue Ridge Mountains. Instead, this film is largely shot in close-up, with shaky, handheld cameras that dart around the room. It is a style that feels prescient of later works like The Big Short and Succession, which are filmed similarly. The choice places the audience up close and personal with everything happening on screen, like a fly on the wall in the room.

Mann’s hold over the direction on The Insider takes what could have fallen into a low-stakes, disengaging drama in the hands of a less capable filmmaker, and turns a Vanity Fair article based on a 60 Minutes segment into a paranoid, tense thriller about whistleblowers and cover-ups. The Insider is one of Mann’s true masterpieces, and deserves to rank among his best works.

The Insider is available to rent or buy on Apple TV+ in the U.S.

Watch on Apple TV+