The Insider, 1999
Michael Mann follows up the razzle dazzle of 1995's Heat with an explosive-free look at Big Tobacco and life inside Amercia's current affairs world.
The prolific Al Pacino plays a Sixty Minutes producer hungry on finding the next great yarn and stumbles across a greying and vulnerable Rusty Crowe.
The boy from Romper Stomper wrestles with whether he should blow the whistle on the Tobacco industry for much of the next two hours.
It's long, intricate and lulls a couple of times but is ultimately worth the effort. Pacino is more subtle than in his previous outing (The Devil's Advocate, 1997) and Rusty looks ready to explode at any minute.
Christopher Plummer and the excellent Phillip Baker Hall are right at home as media types while it's nice to see Vinny Chase's publicist (Debi Mazar) not shrieking obscenities down the phone for once.
At 151 minutes it's no walk in the park but The Insider is worthy of your prolonged concentration.
8/10
Nutbuckle
This is when I realised I hated Russle Crow in "serious" roles. Get him in a skirt, with a sword and a will they wont they (shag) relationship with a red head and I am his biggest fan. Shave his head, give him a chain and you will see me buy movie tix over and over again. But place him in a role where he has to play the everyman with a crisis or personal challenge/demons and I start to nod off. Pacino was good playing the same character he has played in every movie ever but this movie is a "put that down, NOW" pick when on your weekly dvds run.
ReplyDelete6/10