The Insider | |
---|---|
Directed by | Michael Mann |
Written by |
|
Based on | "The Man Who Knew Too Much" by Marie Brenner |
Produced by |
|
Starring | |
Cinematography | Dante Spinotti |
Edited by | |
Music by | |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 158 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $68–90 million [1] |
Box office | $60.3 million [2] |
The Insider is a 1999 American biographical drama film directed by Michael Mann, from a screenplay adapted by Eric Roth and Mann based on Marie Brenner's 1996 Vanity Fair article "The Man Who Knew Too Much". The film stars Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Bruce McGill, Diane Venora, and Michael Gambon.
A fictionalized account of a true story, it centers on the controversial 60 Minutes segment about Jeffrey Wigand, a whistleblower in the tobacco industry, [3] covering his and CBS producer Lowell Bergman's struggles as they defend his testimony against efforts to discredit and suppress it by CBS and Wigand's former employer.
Though not a box office success, The Insider received acclaim from critics, who praised Crowe's portrayal of Wigand and Mann's direction. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor in a Leading Role (for Russell Crowe).
During a prologue, CBS producer Lowell Bergman convinces the founder of Hezbollah, Sheikh Fadlallah, to grant an interview to Mike Wallace for 60 Minutes. Wallace and Bergman firmly stand their ground against the Sheikh's armed and hostile bodyguards, who attempt to intimidate and disrupt their interview preparations.
Later, Bergman approaches Jeffrey Wigand—a former executive at the Brown & Williamson tobacco company—for help in explaining technical documents. Wigand agrees but intrigues Bergman when he insists he won't discuss anything else, citing a confidentiality agreement. B&W later coerces Wigand into a more restrictive agreement, leading Wigand to accuse Bergman of betraying him. Bergman subsequently visits Wigand to defend himself and investigate the potential story. Although Wigand apparently possesses very damaging information, he hesitates to reveal anything, fearing it would jeopardize his severance package from B&W.
Wigand's family moves into a more modest house, and Wigand begins working as a teacher. One night, Wigand finds evidence of trespass and receives a sinister phone call. Meanwhile, Bergman contacts Richard Scruggs, an attorney representing Mississippi in a lawsuit against the tobacco industry. Bergman suggests that if they deposed Wigand, making his information public, it could give CBS cover to broadcast the information; Scruggs expresses interest. Some time later, Wigand receives an emailed death threat and finds a bullet in his mailbox. He contacts the FBI, but the agents who visit him are hostile and confiscate his computer. Furious, Wigand demands that Bergman arrange an interview, during which Wigand states that he was fired after objecting to B&W intentionally making their cigarettes more addictive.
Bergman later arranges a security detail for Wigand's home, and the Wigands experience marital stress. Wigand testifies in Mississippi, despite attempts at intimidation and legal suppression by B&W attorneys. Upon returning home, he discovers that his wife Liane has left him and taken their daughters.
Eric Kluster, the president of CBS News, decides not to broadcast Wigand's interview after CBS legal counsel Helen Caperelli warns that the network is at risk of legal action from B&W. Bergman confronts Kluster, accusing him of sacrificing journalistic integrity to protect the impending sale of CBS to Westinghouse, which would enrich both Kluster and Caperelli. Wallace and their executive producer Don Hewitt both side with Kluster. Wigand, learning of this, is appalled and terminates contact with Bergman.
Investigators probe Wigand's personal history and publish their findings in a 500-page dossier. Bergman learns that The Wall Street Journal intends to use it in a piece questioning Wigand's credibility. He convinces the Journal's editor to delay publication and assign journalists to investigate the dossier, claiming it falsely quotes its sources.
After infighting at CBS over the Wigand segment, Bergman is ordered to take a "vacation" as the abridged 60 Minutes segment airs. Bergman contacts Wigand, who is both dejected and furious, accusing Bergman of manipulating him. Bergman defends himself and praises Wigand and his testimony. Scruggs urges Bergman to air the full segment to draw public support for their lawsuit, which is under threat from a lawsuit by Mississippi's governor. Bergman, frozen out, is unable to assist and privately questions his own motives in pursuing the story.
Bergman contacts an editor at The New York Times , disclosing the full story and events at CBS. The Times prints the story on the front page and condemns CBS in a scathing editorial. The Journal dismisses the dossier as character assassination and prints Wigand's deposition. Hewitt accuses Bergman of betraying CBS but finds that Wallace now agrees that bowing to corporate pressure was a mistake. 60 Minutes finally airs the original segment, including the full interview with Wigand. Bergman tells Wallace that he has resigned, believing 60 Minutes's credibility and integrity are now permanently tarnished.
For the scene in which the deposition hearing takes place, the filmmakers used the actual courtroom in Pascagoula, Mississippi, where the deposition was given. [4]
The Insider was adapted from "The Man Who Knew Too Much", an influential article on tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, written by journalist Marie Brenner for the May 1996 issue of Vanity Fair . [5]
Mike Wallace said that two-thirds of the film was quite accurate, but he disagreed with the film's portrayal of his role in the events; in particular, he objected to the impression that he would have taken a long time to protest CBS's corporate policies. [6]
The Insider was released in 1,809 theaters on November 5, 1999, where it grossed a total of $6,712,361 on its opening weekend and ranked fourth in the country for that time period. It went on to make $29.1 million in North America and $31.2 million in the rest of the world for a total of $60.3 million worldwide, significantly lower than its $90 million budget. [2] The film was considered to be a commercial disappointment. Disney executives had hoped that Mann's film would have the same commercial and critical success as All the President's Men , a film in the same vein.
However, The Insider had limited appeal to younger moviegoers (studio executives reportedly said the prime audience was over the age of 40) and the subject matter was "not notably dramatic," according to marketing executives. Then-Disney chairman Joe Roth said, "It's like walking up a hill with a refrigerator on your back. The fact of the matter is we're really proud we did this movie. People say it's the best movie they've seen this year. They say, 'Why don't we make more movies like this?'" [7]
After the film received seven Academy Awards nominations, but won none, Joe Roth said, "Everyone is really proud of the movie. But it's one of those rare times when adults loved a movie, yet they couldn't convince their friends to go see it, any more than we could convince people in marketing the film." [8]
The Insider received some of the best reviews of 1999 and of Michael Mann's career. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 96% rating based on 137 reviews, with an average rating of 8.10/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Intelligent, compelling, and packed with strong performances, The Insider is a potent corporate thriller." [9] On Metacritic, it has a score of 84 out of 100, based on reviews from 34 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [10] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A- " on scale of A to F. [11]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half out of four stars and praised "its power to absorb, entertain, and anger". [12] Newsweek magazine's David Ansen wrote, "Mann could probably make a movie about needlepoint riveting. Employing a big canvas, a huge cast of superb character actors and his always exquisite eye for composition, he's made the kind of current-events epic that Hollywood has largely abandoned to TV—and shows us how movies can do it better". [13]
In her review for The New York Times , Janet Maslin praised Russell Crowe as "a subtle powerhouse in his wrenching evocation of Wigand, takes on the thick, stolid look of the man he portrays", and felt that it was "by far Mann's most fully realized and enthralling work". [14] Time magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, "When Crowe gets to command the screen, The Insider comes to roiled life. It's an All the President's Men in which Deep Throat takes center stage, an insider prodded to spill the truth". [15] Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers wrote, "With its dynamite performances, strafing wit and dramatic provocation, The Insider offers Mann at his best—blood up, unsanitized, and unbowed". [16]
However, Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B" rating and felt that it was "a good but far from great movie because it presents truth telling in America as far more imperiled than it is". [17]
Director Quentin Tarantino included The Insider in his list of top 20 films released since 1992 (the year he became a director). [18]
In 2006, Premiere ranked Crowe's performance #23 of the 100 Greatest Performances of All Time. [20] Eric Roth and Michael Mann won the Humanitas Prize in the Feature Film category in 2000.
The Insider (Music from the Motion Picture) | |
---|---|
Soundtrack album by Various artists | |
Released | October 26, 1999 |
Recorded | 1999 |
Genre | Soundtrack |
Label | Sony |
Producer | Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke Graeme Revell |
No. | Title | Performer | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "Tempest" | Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke | 2:51 |
2 | "Dawn of the Truth" | Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke | 1:59 |
3 | "Sacrifice" | Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke | 7:41 |
4 | "The Subordinate" | Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke | 1:17 |
5 | "Exile" | Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke | 1:39 |
6 | "The Silencer" | Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke | 1:38 |
7 | "Broken" | Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke | 2:03 |
8 | "Faith" | Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke | 3:01 |
9 | "I'm Alone on This" | Graeme Revell | 2:02 |
10 | "LB in Montana" | Graeme Revell | 0:50 |
11 | "Palladino Montage" | Graeme Revell | 0:45 |
12 | "Iguazu" | Gustavo Santaolalla | 3:12 |
13 | "Liquid Moon" | Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke | 4:05 |
14 | "Rites" (edit) | Jan Garbarek | 5:34 |
15 | "Safe from Harm" (Perfecto Mix) | Massive Attack | 8:14 |
16 | "Meltdown" | Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke | 5:40 |
Michael Kenneth Mann is an American film director, screenwriter, author, and producer, best known for his stylized crime dramas. He has received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards as well as nominations for four Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. His most acclaimed works include the films Thief (1981), Manhunter (1986), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Heat (1995), The Insider (1999), Ali (2001), Collateral (2004), Public Enemies (2009), and Ferrari (2023). He is also known for his role as executive producer on the popular TV series Miami Vice (1984–90), which he adapted into a 2006 feature film.
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealand-born actor, director and musician. He was born in Wellington, spending 10 years of his childhood in Australia and residing there permanently by age 21. His work on screen has earned him various accolades, including an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a British Academy Film Award.
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation. In 2002, 60 Minutes was ranked number six on TV Guide's list of the "50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time", and in 2013, it was ranked number 24 on the magazine's list of the "60 Best Series of All Time". In 2023, Variety ranked 60 Minutes as the twentieth-greatest TV show of all time. The New York Times has called it "one of the most esteemed news magazines on American television".
Ali is a 2001 American biographical sports drama film co-written, produced and directed by Michael Mann. The film focuses on ten years in the life of the boxer Muhammad Ali, played by Will Smith, from 1964 to 1974, featuring his capture of the heavyweight title from Sonny Liston, his conversion to Islam, criticism of the Vietnam War, and banishment from boxing, his return to fight Joe Frazier in 1971, and, finally, his reclaiming the title from George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle fight of 1974. It also touches on the great social and political upheaval in the United States following the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
Lowell Bergman is an American journalist, television producer, and professor of journalism. In a career spanning nearly five decades, Bergman worked as a producer, a reporter, and then the director of investigative reporting at ABC News and as a producer for CBS's 60 Minutes, leaving in 1998 as the senior producer of investigations for CBS News. He was also the founder of the investigative reporting program at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and, for 28 years, taught there as a professor. He was also a producer and correspondent for the PBS documentary series Frontline. In 2019, Bergman retired.
Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation was a U.S. tobacco company and a subsidiary of multinational British American Tobacco that produced several popular cigarette brands. It became infamous as the focus of investigations for chemically enhancing the addictiveness of cigarettes. Its former vice-president of research and development, Jeffrey Wigand, was the whistleblower in an investigation conducted by CBS news program 60 Minutes, an event that was dramatized in the film The Insider (1999). Wigand claimed that B&W had introduced chemicals such as ammonia into cigarettes to increase nicotine delivery and increase addictiveness.
Jeffrey Stephen Wigand is an American biochemist and whistleblower.
Myron Leon Wallace was an American journalist, game show host, actor, and media personality. Known for his investigative journalism, he interviewed a wide range of prominent newsmakers during his seven-decade career. He was one of the original correspondents featured on CBS news program 60 Minutes, which debuted in 1968. Wallace retired as a regular full-time correspondent in 2006, but still appeared occasionally on the series until 2008. He was the father of Chris Wallace.
Mary Alice Mapes is an American journalist, former television news producer, and author. She was a principal producer for CBS News, primarily the CBS Evening News and primetime television program 60 Minutes Wednesday. She is known for the story of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal, which won a Peabody Award, and the story of Senator Strom Thurmond's unacknowledged biracial daughter, Essie Mae Washington. In 2005, she was fired from CBS for her part in the Killian documents controversy.
John Arthur Palladino was an American private investigator and attorney. In 1977 he founded the private detective agency Palladino & Sutherland with his wife, Sandra Sutherland, and over a career spanning more than four decades, Palladino specialized in the preparation for trial of witnesses and evidence in litigation. He was best known for his work in the Peoples Temple tragedy, his defense of car maker John DeLorean, for the Bill Clinton presidential election committee, the tobacco industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand, singer Courtney Love, and musician R. Kelly.
The General's Daughter is a 1999 American mystery thriller film directed by Simon West from a screenplay co-written by Christopher Bertolini and William Goldman, based on the novel of the same name by Nelson DeMille. It stars John Travolta, Madeleine Stowe, James Cromwell, Timothy Hutton, Clarence Williams III, and James Woods. The plot concerns the mysterious death of the daughter of a prominent Army general. The General's Daughter received negative reviews from critics, but was a box-office success, grossing $149.7 million worldwide against an estimated budget of $60 to $95 million.
Donald Shepard Hewitt was an American television news producer and executive, best known for creating the CBS television news magazine 60 Minutes in 1968, which at the time of his death was the longest-running prime-time broadcast on American television. Under Hewitt's leadership, 60 Minutes was the only news program ever rated as the nation's top-ranked television program, an achievement it accomplished five times. Hewitt produced the first televised presidential debate in 1960.
Charles Lewis is an investigative journalist based in Washington D.C. He founded The Center for Public Integrity and several other nonprofit organizations and is currently the executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University School of Communication in D.C.
The 3rd Online Film Critics Society Awards, honoring the best in film for 1999, were given in 2000.
Marie Harriet Brenner is an American author, investigative journalist and writer-at-large for Vanity Fair. She has also written for New York, The New Yorker and the Boston Herald and has taught at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Her 1996 Vanity Fair article on tobacco insider Jeffrey Wigand, "The Man Who Knew Too Much", inspired the 1999 movie The Insider, starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. Her February 1997 Vanity Fair article "American Tragedy: The Ballad of Richard Jewell" partially inspired the 2019 film Richard Jewell directed by Clint Eastwood.
Andrew McGuire is an American trauma prevention specialist and grassroots campaigner. He was the first Executive Director of Action Against Burns, founder and Executive Director of the Burn Council, which was renamed the Trauma Foundation, in 1981. He is currently the Executive Director of California OneCare, a campaign to establish a "Medicare for All" type health insurance for all residents of California.
The Man with the Iron Fists is a 2012 American martial arts film directed by RZA and written by RZA and Eli Roth. The film stars RZA, Russell Crowe, Cung Le, Lucy Liu, Byron Mann, Rick Yune, Dave Bautista, and Jamie Chung. Set in 19th century China, the story follows a series of lone warriors who are forced to unite to defeat a common foe and save their home of Jungle Village.
Russell Crowe is an actor. He gained international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 epic historical film Gladiator, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor. Crowe's other performances include tobacco firm whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand in the drama film The Insider (1999) and mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. in the biopic A Beautiful Mind (2001). He has also starred in films Romper Stomper with Daniel Pollock (1992), The Quick and the Dead with Sharon Stone (1995), L.A. Confidential with Guy Pearce (1997), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World with Paul Bettany (2003), Cinderella Man with Renée Zellweger (2005), 3:10 to Yuma with Christian Bale (2007), American Gangster with Denzel Washington (2007), State of Play with Ben Affleck (2009), and Robin Hood with Cate Blanchett (2010).
Gavin Hall MacFadyen was an American investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. He was the director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIJ) at Goldsmiths, University of London; Co-Founder with Eileen Chubb of the UK whistleblower support group, The Whistler; and a Trustee of the Courage Foundation. He was acknowledged as a ″beloved director of WikiLeaks″ shortly after his death in 2016.
Mike Wallace Is Here is a 2019 biographical documentary film directed by Avi Belkin. It was produced by Rafael Marmor, Peggy Drexler, John Battsek, Avi Belkin, and Chris Leggett, under the banner of Drexler Films, Delirio Films and Rock Paper Scissors Entertainment. The film follows the life and career of American journalist Mike Wallace, using never-before-seen archival footage of the journalist preparing for and speaking about his work.
Although based on a true story, certain elements in this motion picture have been fictionalized for dramatic effect.