comment #1

AH says ...

I am a huge Mann fan but even I have to admit that The Insider was a chore to sit through because everything that in that movie had already been covered, in detail, in multiple news reports and articles.

No one can deny the artistic skill that went into making that movie but if I am going to plunk down some hard earned cash and time for a flick with a message, then it better be a new message.

comment #2

Balthazar says ...

I love the Insider.

Interesting to see here on HE the back-to-back clips of Any Given Sunday and The Insider.

Michael Mann vs. Oliver Stone is not a fair fight. Makes Stone look like a student filmmaker who's too in love with all the buttons and gadgets.

comment #3

BernardHerrmanROX says ...

I certainly went to see this excellent film at the theater, twice. Interestingly, I was snug in the 18-25 age demographic at the time. I didn't go because there were incredible effects, awesome dames, or superheroes. I went because it was an excellent story, by an excellent director, adapted by the great Eric Roth, and included two great screen presences. It's no accident that great material attracts great talent.
I also heard among my friends at the time the broad, assuming, dismissal of it being an anti-smoking film. It's too bad, for them. Sticking up for what's right when the world is caving in around you probably wouldn't have been of narrative interest to them either, at least when the new Bay film has just opened.

comment #4

Teacher's Pets says ...

How did the marketing get screwed up, exactly?

Granted, I'm not your average moviegoer, but I was 16 when this movie was released and I was there opening night...I remember thinking that the trailer played well.

Anyway, I loved it, and I wish Mann would infuse more of his films with the moral complexity of this one...Hopefully Eric Roth and De Niro can get a sequel to Good Shepherd off the ground...

comment #5

George Prager says ...

II distinctly remember Wells writing about the lukewarm interest in this movie when it came out. He wrote that he asked a young woman bartender/waitress/hostess if she was interested in seeing the movie. She said she and her boyfriend might see it because they heard that Gina Gershon was in it.

I saw this at a screening in midtown Manhattan. When I arrived, the folks running the screening were surprised that I knew about it and asked how I got word of the screening. I went in and sat down and waited for the film to begin. A couple of minutes later, Leslie Stahl and her husband walked in and sat down. She saw a friend and joked "I'm not here, okay? I'm not here."

comment #6

h.krinkle says ...

I absolutely love this movie and keep hoping a fully loaded DVD version is in the works. SO much crap gets multiple releases and gems like this get the shit treatment.

comment #7

John Cocktosten says ...

I was an extra in this movie. My chief memory is being stuck at John Wayne airport for 17 hours while Mann shot about a billion feet more film than necessary for the scene where Crowe gets served.

I also remember thinking "That's the guy from LA Confidential? He got fat. " Of course, he got fat for the role. He had to fix that in a hurry, as he shot Gladiator next.

I am fond of the movie; I love the fact that the hero is a scientist with principles. It wasn't necessarily about smoking at all--it's about acting on principle, even if it is to your extreme detriment.

comment #8

va says ...

What a great clip! How any moviegoer with any sense of art/acting could skip this film when it was released is "above my pay grade." The one thing that saddens me is - even though I would watch Pacino read the phone book - why doesn't Al get scripts with this kind of meat any more? Discuss....

comment #9

swordandpen says ...

Great, underrated film that I coincidentally just watched a few weeks ago. Although like the last couple of posts, I didn't think the movie was about smoking but rather than sticking to your principles and having integrity.

Let's face it. Considering these last few years in this country, it felt good watching a movie about that.

comment #10

actionman says ...

The film is a masterpiece, and one of my personal favorites of all time. Everything about it is just about perfect in my estimation.

A fully-loaded DVD is waaaay overdue. It's a shame that more people didn't check it out when it was released in theaters. I saw it three times and have watched it numerous times on DVD.

The thing that I love about it is that it moves like a thriller, similar to All the President's Men and Zodiac, yet it's stripped of any of the conventional "thriller" elements that a lesser director might've been inclined to include.

comment #11

Balthazar says ...

Two good comparisons, actionman

Love the journalism at work in ATPM and The Insider

comment #12

TedM says ...

I'll confess that I was one of those people who skipped the film, even after its Oscar nominations, simply because it was sold as the "60 Minutes" movie. I had seen the interview with Wigand on TV -- why did I want to pay to see it in the theater? And for many years I avoided the film. Within the last year, it's been in constant rotation on Encore (or one of its many channels) so I finally sat down and watched it and have been kicking myself retroactively for not seeing it. I have no real excuse ... mea culpa ...

comment #13

Pablo Villaça says ...

Believe it or not, I watched this film THREE times during its theatrical release in Brazil. And the second time, this huge guy (Jeff would call him... well, almost a Jabba) collapsed in front of me while getting out of the theater after having a massive heart attack. At the time, I was a Med student and, with the help of the first aid professional from the mall the cinema was located at, we tried to reanimate the guy but without success. The paramedics came minutes later and also tried for a long time. He died right there and then.

It always fascinated me (I don't know why) that the very last film he ever watched was The Insider. In a sense, he was lucky. It could be an Adam Sandler film (and I still can't believe you gave shitty Zohan a pass, Wells!).

By the way, why do you always link to wikipedia instead of linking to imdb?

comment #14

AndrewOwens says ...

Here in the UK the whole Wigand scandal was hardly news, so when I sat down it was all new to me. I missed Ali because I thought I knew it all, and when I finally sat down with it I kicked myself for not seeing it on the big screen.

Any word, buzz or goss on Public Enemies? Wish it was a end of this year release rather than a summer release. It just feels more awards seasony than blockbustery.

comment #15

redmond says ...

One of my all time favorite films. Classic Pacino before, well, I dunno what happened to him...

comment #16

dre says ...

Without question one of the finest films of the 90s. Arguably Crowe's best work but oddly enough the movie becomes even more compelling when Pacino's character takes over in the second half. If only most movies were this intelligent and interesting.

comment #17

Legowombat says ...

Typical Hollywood arrogance from Pacino. I think the lack of interest was probably more due to the fact that they patronisingly chose to educate the masses from on high on a subject that everyone already knew about anyway.

I was born in 1971, and learnt from my school, my family, Superman, the Smurfs and Yogi Bear, (back when his anti-pollution cartoon was called 70's 'Eco-Friendly' rather than the 80's 'Green'), that smoking gives you cancer. Way to tap into the Zeitgeist there, Hollywood! Drugs are bad, M'kay?

It's like all those horrible 'small towns have heart' movies like 'Cars' or 'Meet Me In St Louis', that tell the rubes to stay in the sticks and don't dream for anything better, all made by people living affluent lifestyles in Los Angeles.

Maybe people just don't like being patronised.

comment #18

Richardson says ...

But, lego, the movie is about how the news that we watch is corrupted and influenced by the multi-billion dollar companies that own them and the other multi-billion dollar companies they do business with. Smoking is completely incidental to the movie. Which, I think, is the marketing problem people are talking about -- it was made to look like something it wasn't, which wasn't interesting, because they couldn't figure out how to advertise what it was.

comment #19

dre says ...

Typical uninformed arrogance from Legowombat. That isn't what the movie is about and that is Jeff's point.

comment #20

NotImpressedYet says ...

Legowombat, you couldn't be more wrong. Richardson has it right - this movie is a true life parable about the dominance of corporate interests over the public interest. To be sure, this is probably the 1000th movie to cover that ground, but it's awfully fertile soil.

comment #21

K. Bowen says ...

Maybe they didn't want to be lectured for a few hours about facts they already knew.

comment #22

Doug Pratt says ...

People didn't go see The Insider because it was a lousy movie, unable to decide whether it wanted to be about a whistle blower or about the press, and dragged down even more by Russell Crowe's bad American accent.

comment #23

madskrilla says ...

"WIPE THAT SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE!!!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdGqfhAt6yQ

Mr. Bruce McGill, if you're reading this, thank you, thank you, thank you.

The Insider is an excellent film with moments of greatness that bombed because the filmmakers assumed the existence a modicum of intelligence on the part of their audience. It's not aimed at morons with short attention spans, it has not been made in order to sell popcorn. Unlike unwatchable pap like The Dark Knight or Hancock, it made less than 30 million.

There is such a thing as a noble failure.

comment #24

D.Z. says ...

"Are the low-information types who can't be bothered with absorbing the particular, easy-to-research facts about Obama or McCain the same ones who didn't go to The Insider because they didn't want to see a movie that was about how smoking gives you cancer?"

I didn't go to "The Insider", because it's representative of the same anti-tobacco propaganda which led to people going to jail for possessing marijuana and drinking liquor in a bar. I also find it ironic that you bring up Capone, since he wouldn't exist if a minority of Americans hadn't taken their hatred of liquor to the extreme enough to ban it.

Bernard: "I also heard among my friends at the time the broad, assuming, dismissal of it being an anti-smoking film. It's too bad, for them. Sticking up for what's right"

Sticking up for what's right would be letting people do whatever they want to their own bodies. By the logic you're using, you have no problem interfering with Terry Schiavo's assisted suicide, either.

Richardson: "But, lego, the movie is about how the news that we watch is corrupted and influenced by the multi-billion dollar companies that own them and the other multi-billion dollar companies they do business with. Smoking is completely incidental to the movie."

Yes, but it's ironic that a subsidiary of a company which specializes in spreading its own propaganda to increase diabetes in kids through sugar has the gall to criticize corporations which sell cigarettes.

comment #25

broadstreetbully says ...

D.Z. is quite right. Moral crusading is moral crusading, whether you do it from the left or the right. The progressive desire to stamp out anything possibly bad for you, or to limit an individual's choice to *horror!* do something that's not healthy, IS what's at the heart of this film. Just simply saying "but..but...its about corporations!" is as anti-intellectual a stance as you can have.

And lego, I don't think you read "Meet Me in St. Louis" correctly. Whatever one may think of St. Louis now, and whatever New Yorkers may have thought of St. Louis in 1904, they still didn't think of it as "the sticks". It was holding a World's Fair, for Christ's sake, and the Olympics that year. The movie was simply a paen to home, wherever home may be.

comment #26

broadstreetbully says ...

And btw, I'm as anti-corporate a progessive as you can find. But I can also think for myself. As Dennis Miller said, or something close to it "if you're a smoker and you say you didn't know cigarettes were bad for you, you're lying through that hole in your trachea".

I think corporations are doing much, much worse things than making products that may be unhealthy, but are legal to purchase. Anyone who gets worked up about this is no better than a Phyllis Schlafly. Same kind of person.

comment #27

buster says ...

"Are the low-information types who can't be bothered with absorbing the particular, easy-to-research facts about Obama or McCain "

...I think the great revelation here is that Jeff is suggesting that liberals are actually capable of being low-information types...

...that, or he's talking about the conservatives who buy into the mythos of McCain, facts be damned.

My bet's on the latter ... but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that it's the first ... I'd like to thikn that Wells is growing a little.

comment #28

atticusrex says ...

Mr. Wells: Thank you for bringing up this excellent film. I remember thinking when I saw this... It was in November of the year of it's release and I had just seen Magnolia. I felt I had witness the best movies of the decade inside two weeks!

Though I would also add LA Confidential, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, Fargo, True Romance, Heat, The Usual Suspects and Miller's Crossing as the best Hollywood Movies of the 1990's.

With The Matrix, Fifth Element, Schindler's List, Leon The Professional and Unforgiven as runner ups.

But as for the Insider, I thought it was just about as perfect a movie as there can be.

comment #29

Michael says ...

D.Z., does this mean you've never seen the film?

This film had nothing to do about moral crusading in regards to smoking. If the message you got was "smoking is bad", you should watch it again. It is essentially, how far are you willing to go to stand by your word?

The scene between Plummer and Pacino late in the movie is one of the most powerful I can remember. The quote from the NYT editorial page comes down like a hammer. It reminded me a lot of Quiz Show. Mann's best movie.

comment #30

D.Z. says ...

Michael: "This film had nothing to do about moral crusading in regards to smoking. If the message you got was "smoking is bad", you should watch it again. It is essentially, how far are you willing to go to stand by your word?"

Ok, and what would that word be, exactly?

comment #31

bluefugue says ...

I confess I've only seen 3 Mann films (Insider, Heat, Mohicans), but of those, Insider is my favorite -- mainly for two scenes of indignant anger. One with Christopher Plummer as Wallace, the other the D.A. played by Bruce McGill. Those scenes jump off the screen and point out how pleasurable it can be to watch righteous fury in action, when a good actor is portraying it. "Mike? Mike? Try Mr. Wallace. Just because we work in the same corporation doesn't mean we work in the same profession." ... "This is not North Carolina. Not South Carolina, nor Kentucky. This is the sovereign state of Missouri proceeding -- WIPE THAT SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE!"

Man, now I want to go buy the DVD...

comment #32

StoneFan1 says ...

Boy, more attacks on Oliver Stone. What a
shocker! I bet we wouldn't find these kinds of
remarks between 1986-1991! It's funny how when
someone is hot, everybody throws themselves
over board in praise, but when it's "hip" to run
them over with a city bus, WATCH OUT!

Anyway, this is tough for me since Mann is my
third or fourth favorite director while Stone is #1.
But Mann hasn't made anything close to "JFK"
or "Nixon." "The Insider" was my pick for Best
Picture of 1999 and the ad campaign by Disney
killed the film. People watched the ads and trailer
and said to themselves, "Gee, I'll have to think
and actually have real emotions while watching
that movie," I think I'll skip it. I'll always remember
seeing the trailer for "The Insider" and "Any Given
Sunday" back-to-back in September of 1999 and
I knew "AGS" would make a lot more at the box
office. Even worldwide, "AGS" grossed $100
million while "The Insider" made about $60 million.

comment #33

Jay T. says ...

The Insider was very clearly about journalism, not the whistleblower or cigarettes. Great film for anyone with an attention span...

comment #34

D.Z. says ...

Stonefan: I thought the problem with the ad campaign was that a faceless corporation was trying to make other faceless corporations look bad; but that's just me.

comment #35

markj says ...

One of the great cinema experiences. I left the cinema dazed.

And thanks to those above for mentioning the Bruce McGill line...genius!