Few filmmakers are capable of taking a whistle-blowing dramatization of real life dusty legal shenanigans and news gathering and making it so chest convulsively taut the blood in your ears pounds. But then few directors are of the calibre of Michael Mann (an honorable mention goes to Tony Gilroy’s fictional corporate legal thriller, Michael Clayton). Based on Marie Brenner’s 1996 Vanity Fair article, The Insider stars Russell Crowe and Al Pacino in a story of one man against greedy behemoths.
Mann demonstrates great skill in allowing his two protagonists to reveal their true characters through their conflicting personalities. Unlike many films that pit opposing characters against each other in an artificial collision, he lets them develop naturally while they are both caught up in a situation that threatens to destroy their lives.
In the first half of the film, we see Wigand as a man torn between his family and his conscience. He is a man who has the knowledge that could devastate “big tobacco” but is hesitant to go public with it. His internal conflicts are further exacerbated by his conflict with his former employers, Brown and Williamson.
When Bergman comes to Wigand with a 60 Minutes segment in mind, we see the story shift gears. Wigand begins to take his own fight public. But even after CBS airs the story, Bergman’s pyrrhic victory feels hollow. For him, the fight was never really about the journalism but about his own personal integrity. This is the central conflict in The Insider and the reason why it’s such a powerful film.
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