150 Word Review: 'The Insider' (1999)
Hour of power
There was a time when Americans wanted stories about truthtellers, consequences be damned. Not so much these days. At least there's director Michael Mann's The Insider, a fictionalized drama about a real-life whistleblower and a journalist who exposes corruption.
Russell Crowe does some of his best work as a flawed scientist who works for a tobacco company until he pushes back and is fired. For decades, you see, cigarette makers denied that their products caused cancer while making them more addictive.
Crowe's character struggles to do the right thing as his family is terrorized. Al Pacino is an emotional firehose as legendary 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman. Christopher Plummer almost walks away with the movie as Mike Wallace, the famed broadcast journalist, cool-headed and hot-blooded. The screenplay by Mann and Eric Roth serves up a few macho speeches more thrilling than fistfights. The Insider asks: Would you tell the truth?