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Up close and personal

Suparn Verma

Every single cigarette packet in the world plays a game of cat and mouse, a game of truth laced with deceit. Cigarette smoking is injurious to health, reads the statutory warning on the glossy pack. What it does not say is that cigarettes are addictive and will eventually lead to life-threatening diseases.

Which is what director Michael Mann (Heat, Last Of The Mohicans) attempts to tackle in his latest film, The Insider, where he recreates the drama of 60 Minutes, the show in which the tobacco industry was exposed for the first time, as a result of which they were forced to pay over $246 billion as damages.

But the story is not about the expose, it is about journalistic ethics in modern day corporate culture, where the management assesses the potential damage before a story is carried out. Where journalists use and abuse sources and everyday people for their story, their 15 minutes of fame, before flitting on to the next story.

This is the true story of how producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) of CBS's most respected news show 60 Minutes, convinced Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), an ex-employee of one the biggest tobacco company to reveal the truth in an interview with Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer).

Wigand agrees and, in the process, puts his life on the line, losing his wife and children who can no longer support his battle. As if that wasn't enough, CBS's corporate division decides against carrying the story since 'the greater the truth, greater the damages.'

What follows a struggle of right versus and wrong, in which both Bergman and Wigand put everything on the line.

The subject matter may sound extremely interesting but the credit for that goes to the writing abilities of Mann and Eric Roth (who won an Oscar for Forrest Gump), who have sifted through details condensed the subject matter into a two hour plus thought provoking drama.

The camerawork by Dante Spinotti, is amazing, using a lot of steadycam shots, balancing them with cameras on tripod, the effect is of continuously movement and energy which keep pacing the film up, the camerawork is complemented with some really edgy editing.

Music has always been a big instrument in Mann's films, and here too it changes moods with every tone and mood of the film.

Pacino and Plummer are extremely effective in their portrayals, but it is the Australian actor, Crowe, who steals the thunder. He has put on weight, both around his waist and on his face, in deference to the cherubic, real-life Wigand. The limp, the hairdo, each and every facial twitch and gesture, the silent pauses and the dignity with which Crowe portrays the character add a depth to the film, which another actor may not have been able to bring in.

In the end, though, the film is a sad but true picture of today's world, where lawsuits govern the ability to tell the truth and where people are commodities to be used and disposed. What we don't often realise is that these victims are actually heroes, for they have the courage to speak the truth.

Men like Wigand exist everywhere, incidents like this happen everyday. They touch our lives and change it for the better, but we move on without even realising that such a thing has happened.

All in all, The Insider is one of Hollywood's best releases in the last year. It is a pity that the movie has been relegated to the late night slot in Bombay.