Rating: 
Summary: The Insider
Review: Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!Trust me, you're gonna love this movie. Crowe has now established himself as one of the best actors around. His performance was awesome. Al Pacino, yet again, adds real class. I also enjoyed Christopher Plummer's convincing performance as the 60 Minutes anchor man.
Rating:
Summary: An Incredible, Engaging Drama
Review: "The Insider," based on the actual story of a big-tobacco whistle-blower, is one of those movies that must to be seen to be believed. Director Michael Mann creates a film whose sense of urgency crescendos as the picture goes on. The tense atmosphere created in this film is simply incredible, considering there is no violence, only innuendo. While the factual aspects of this picture are in dispute, there can be no denying the incredible attention to great story telling that Mann displays. Al Pacino is, as is usually the case, an impressive force on the screen. His character is powerful and convincing, but never over-the-top. Russell Crowe, however, absolutely steels the show as an overly aggressive tobacco executive who goes to the national media to tell of the industry's crimes. His performance shows amazing humanity and vulnerability (It's amazing this is the same, nearly-immortal General Maximus of "Gladiator."). Crowe acts the part of the typical Shakespearean tragic figure; giving up everything he is just to do the right thing. "The Insider" is an intriguing dramatic thriller that is not to be missed
Rating: 
Summary: Money does not always win.
Review: This is a true story of a man who decided to tell the world what the major tobacco companies knew about the dangers of their product. Jeffrey Wigand was a scientist employed in research for a tobacco firm. Soon after he was fired Wigand came into contact with a producer for 60 Minutes who worked closely with journalist Mike Wallace. Bergman, the producer, arranged for Wigand to be interviewed by Wallace for a 60 Minutes expose on the cigarette industry, though Wigand was still bound by a confidentiality agreement not to discuss his employment with the company. Despite Wigand's willingness to talk, CBS pulled his interview from at the last minute afterthe tobacco company threatened a multi-billion dollar lawsuit. The staff of 60 Minutes and CBS News were soon in an internal struggle over the killing of the stor. Even though Wigand's full story did not see the light of day, he found himself the subject of lawsuits and a smear campaign.
Rating:
Summary: Justification!
Review: There are several times in someones life when they feel that they have been wronged. During this time, everyone wants to feel justice and rightfully so. If you have never had your chance, this movie will give you that inspiration that you need in order to continue the struggle. While this movie is an actual portrayal of events surrounding the tobacco litigation, the movie by itself is wonderful. The script is strategically written in order to demonstrate the frustrations that went on behind the scenes. Al Pacino gives another great performance that will be added to his career as one of the best, not forgetting The Godfather triliogy. Russle Crowe's performance should have been awarded with an Oscar for this performance, and not for his role in Gladiator. As a law student, this is the exact reason why I want to be a lawyer - to see that justice is done, regardless of the circumstances! This movie will make you think, and hopefully angry, about how business, society, and people operate in the world that we live in. You have to see it, if for no other reason, because it depicts what America should be like!
Rating:
Summary: STELLAR PERFORMANCES
Review: Russell Crowe is a talented and chameleonic actor. He can disappear into his roles, which is probably one of the most difficult things an actor can do. So many actors are easily typecast because they just cannot disappear, but in The Insider Crowe disappears into the role of a middle-aged American tobacco company executive living in the suburbs. The character gives up everything he has to be a whistleblower about the damaging effects of cigarettes on health. Crowe was amazing in this role and should have taken home an Oscar for his performance. This said, I am not one of the fawning sort of fans who thinks of Crowe as a sex symbol. I don' t really see the appeal toward that at all. This role is a good example of how he is so much more than that. The film is astounding and as often is the case all the more astounding because it is true. Al Pacino is his passionate and effective self as the producer who convinced Crowe's character to come forward and reveal these tobacco-industry secrets. Pacino's character fights the good fight for Crowe, but it never quite works out perfectly or happily. This is one of the truly remarkable elements of a film like this. It tells a story and tells it brilliantly without overmoralizing anything. Without beating the viewers over the head with anything. Without trying to wrap the story up into a neat little happy ending package. In real life, things end with loose ends untied, and this story shows that sometimes good does not ultimately triumph over bad. It may have small victories all along the way, but in moral warfare-indeed any kind of warfare-there will be a series of battles, some small and some large, and there are wins and losses all along the way.
Rating:
Summary: great film
Review: I truly think this is a great film. I don't say that often. Sitting down and watching and feeling this movie is an experience. I should have known Michael Mann directed. I was a great fan of Miami Vice many moons ago, and didn't realize until halfway through the Insider that Mann was responsible. But it made sense -- the music plays such a crucial role. Mann succeeds at creating a psychological, mood film that is quite riveting to me. I really don't want to get long-winded about all the wonderful, wonderful scenes (hotel room, golf range, CBS offices, outside Wigand's house at night, the long parade of cars going to the deposition, Wigand's return from the deposition, on and on...). I think this movie is perfect from beginning to end. Pacino's hair-raising speech, "are we newsmen or businessmen?" is priceless and Russell Crowe, is, as I've come to see after watching many of his films now, an absolutely brilliant actor. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! Sit down, get quiet, and watch this movie -- really watch it. Take the time to enjoy a visual and auditory feast.
Rating:
Summary: A Must See - Wigand is a True Hero
Review: Forget anything negative you may have heard about this movie. Forget any protestations that the story is not entirely true or that it presents some characters in a negative light. This is a superb movie which will move you greatly. When I first watched the movie, I was struck by the terrorization that this man suffered, the threats on his and his family's life, and ultimately the disruption of his marriage. Regardless of the dramatized details, Jeffrey Wigand was threatened, sued, and was placed under extroardinary pressure not to tell the truth about a major public health issue. This is a compelling story anyway you look at it. Both Russell Crowe and Al Pacino are excellent. Russell Crowe has captured the essence of this man in a way that is uncanny when compared to the real Jeffrey Wigand. His performance is a feat of acting. Al Pacino is hard-hitting and electrifying. Visually, the movie brings to life the sense of desparation and paranoia which the characters must have felt. The score is haunting and moving as well. Jeffrey Wigand left the tobacco company and became a high school teacher, winning the Teacher of the Year award in 1996. This cannot be the same person that the tobacco industry has been trying to portray as a "master of deception." He is a true hero.
Rating:
Summary: Great Perfomances
Review: This was a great film, with a great cast, and great acting. This was another outstanding performance by Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.
Rating:
Summary: The TRUTH that sets one Free...may cost EVERYTHING
Review: Intentionally or no, Michael Mann has created a Post Modern parable about freedom and TRUTH. To (Al Pacino) Lowell Bergman and (Christopher Plummer) "Mike the Knife" Wallace TRUTH is a feel good game for self-apotheosis and profit. Neither...along with the entire 60 MINUTES CBS cabal (the original exercise in TV REALITY "programming")...will truly risk anything that costs them "jack". Russell Crowe's EVERYMAN, Jeffrey Wigand is The Perfect Fool sacrificed to crass entertainment pretrending to be a moral agent. Crowe's character refuses to be...or take...THE MARK...hence he cannot buy, nor sell...and is destroyed at the hands of an oligarchial CORPORATE BEAST. Mann's direction is consistent with other great efforts (MANHUNTER; LAST of the MOHICHANS) and mood driven failures (HEAT; THE KEEP)...that move at warp speed into unrelived moral conflict. THE INSIDER takes no prisoners because ultimately its craft is the challenge it poses to viewers FORCED to identify with one or more characters in (life-affirming or negating) radical situations presented. The Grand Conspiracy (like Corporate Tobacco)only exaggerates and dramatically emphasizes MAN for ALL SEASONS (or none!)choices which occasionally...unfairly?...and brutally confront individuals as tests of commitment to their own humanity and self-respect. The INSIDER speaks to those who have been persecuted for the TRUTH. To PERSECUTORS who ally themselves with forces of evil for the sake of POWER. And to SPECTATORS who convince themselves they are not complicit. Michael Mann's film is an allegorical horror story. Its monsters (and obsequious victim/disciples) "get and spend" themselves in conceits of self-delusioning enslavement even as they ironically destroy the thing they most admire. The pacing of the movie becomes dizzying when a viewer...now in Jeffrey Wiggand's OUTSIDER's "shoes"...realizes what Mann has done with a simple movie. Like it; love it; or wash your hands of it altogether. THE INSIDER probes conscience; tests Truth's cost. It is a moral/intellectual thriller that demands honest account from INSIDER/OUSIDER viewers alike......
Rating:
Summary: The every-day amazing story: Realism meets Hollywood.
Review: A superb film about the high-stakes battle between a family man, Big Journalism and Big Tobacco. Michael Mann is a master of the every day. In all of his films - and even his lone dip into tv, 'Miami Vice,' - Mann successfully captures that feeling of the routine, of driving home after a long workday, of sitting down to dinner with the kids. It is that realism sprinkled over every frame of this movie that makes it so enthralling. There is no Hollywood-ending here. In 'The Insider,' words and actions have consequences, sometimes dire. Marriages dissolve. Lawsuits are filed. Jobs are lost. (you get the picture). All of that adds to the depth of our protagonist, Mr. Gladiator himself Russell Crowe, whose intensity in this film is palpable. I highly recommend it.
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