THE INSIDER (1999)

Though it seems insane today, there was once a time when tobacco companies claimed that smoking was non-addictive. In 1994, Thomas Sandefur, Chairman and CEO of Brown & Williamson, testified in Congress that nicotine wasn’t an addictive chemical. He knew this was a lie. Everyone at Brown & Williamson knew this was a lie. But it was a lie they would kill to keep from the public.

Dr Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) has come across some rather explosive information. After four years of working as an executive and health professional at the third-largest tobacco company in the world, he’s unceremoniously fired and bound to a confidentiality agreement. He knows how high-ranking corporate officials are well aware of what’s going on in the research and development labs at Brown & Williamson: scientists are adding addictive, carcinogenic chemical compounds (such as coumarin) to make their product all the more enticing.

When Wigand is approached by Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) of the CBS show 60 Minutes, it’s clear how the story shows signs of unravelling. It’s around this time when Wigand becomes paranoid. He’s being followed, he’s receiving death threats, and he finds an ominous message in his mailbox: a bullet. This is a story that powerful people will do everything within their power to prevent from airing to the public.

As director Michael Mann reveals the sheer number of ways a powerful corporation can do that, he crafts a taut, winding thriller that analyses many of the ills which plague US society. It’s a story that asks: why is the truth so difficult to tell? And, perhaps even more revealing, it questions why we so rarely hear it, even when it’s known as an undeniable fact. With a superb script, scintillating performances, and adept editing, The Insider is a fantastic whistleblower story which remains all the more relevant today.

From the outset, it’s apparent how nefarious these trillion-dollar companies are, as well as how determined they are to keep every penny they earn. One character reveals how they spend more than $600M a year in legal fees, which is a fraction of what they would have to pay if they were ever found culpable for their customers’ health problems. It’s woefully evident that the law is forged by and designed to protect the rich.

Other whistleblower films before and since The Insider have shown this time and again: it’s all about the money. Human lives are quantifiable financially. Erin Brockovich (2000) and the recent (and incredible) Dark Waters (2019) both had this as a central thesis. The villains in these films don’t have plans of world domination, but domination of the market. Their customers aren’t people, but figures, statistics, and the sloping gradient of a graph at a quarterly sales review.

So, who cares if some people die? That’s the unspoken rule of smoking: it’s fun and dangerous. Tobacco companies simply can’t admit the latter for legal reasons, but everyone knows it. The dearth of human feeling and basic empathy in these figures is frightening, mostly because there’s nothing fake about it. While Mann’s stellar thriller fabricates some of the narrative’s events for the sake of drama, there’s nothing unreal about these corporate psychopaths. Profit margins are all they care about—the fact consumers are at a higher risk of getting cancer due to their “enhancing” of the product is irrelevant.

And then, we’re left wondering how anyone in the world can be so heartless. What’s worse, we struggle with the knowledge that the level of pain and suffering which they’ve inflicted on millions can never have any true retribution: the company will pay a fine. However, the immoral, unscrupulous behaviour of the individuals behind the company is never punished appropriately. More often than not, these whistleblower stories only really unveil how justice can never be done in a world that values money over human life.

It’s something that the screenplay touches on superbly. As Wigand is speaking with Bergman, the doctor squints his eyes at the investigative journalist: “I’m just a commodity to you, aren’t I? I could be anything. Right? Anything worth putting on between commercials.” Even the truth is rendered a product; it’s not valuable because it’s a fact, but because it’s a shocking fact, one that will command a viewer’s attention.

It’s for this reason that Wigand has to analyse his decision to go public over and over again: he may be ruining his life for no good reason. Telling the truth and doing the right thing is seemingly an irrational decision in a world that only values the dollar. But as Krishnamurti once wrote: “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a sick society.” Anyone with a functioning moral compass could see what the right thing would be to do. Wigand knows that the people have to hear the truth, and the stress this puts on his family life forms a very realistic bedrock of moral dilemma.

Unfortunately, in such a society, that’s a difficult thing to do: the tobacco companies try to stuff his mouth with money. After this proves unsuccessful, threats, blackmail, and legal obstacles attempt to shut him up. It’s rather ironic how, in a country which venerates the right to free speech, the ability to speak the truth seems so rare. This is perhaps best dramatised in the conversation surrounding tortious interference: CBS is warned that they’re a third party who’s damaging the non-disclosure agreement between Brown & Williamson and Dr Wigand. The truth has a price tag, one large enough for the tobacco giant to bury CBS.

The bizarre workings of the law suggest that it would be simpler if Wigand was lying about the whole thing: if he were lying, crazy, or merely wrong, no one at Brown & Williamson would care. The problem is, he’s completely honest: “The greater the truth, the greater the damage.” Bergman struggles just as much as we do with the lack of common sense on display: “What is this, Alice in Wonderland?”

The Insider reveals how to craft brilliant conflict. Good drama is not just people screaming at each other (though one should expect quite a bit of screaming from Al Pacino whenever he’s on screen, and he doesn’t disappoint). Instead, great conflict stems from a conflict of desires. People want opposing things, but only one party can get it. Especially in films such as this one, the conflict surrounds a battle for the truth: will it be concealed, or revealed? While Wigand battles Brown & Williamson, those at CBS come into conflict over the ethics of their involvement, and how they should proceed.

The writing is done a great service by the able performances. Realistically, I’m not sure how many films we get these days that feature such a range of capable actors: Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, Christopher Plummer, Michael Gambon, Diane Venora, Gina Gershon, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Phillip Baker Hall. Everyone is in incredible form here, particularly Crowe as our titular inside man, who’s fearful that he’s wrapping his own noose around his neck.

Michael Mann succeeds in his direction in that none of the cast members take up more space than they deserve. The film moves forward briskly but doesn’t become excessively fast-paced. Mann knows which moments deserve pause and solemnity, and which deserve a much-needed dose of irreverent humour, more often than not delivered by the acerbic Pacino: “Tortious interference? That sounds like a disease caught by a radio.”

The music is also good in parts, though in others the droning theme becomes a little too much. It mostly serves to diminish the drama, not amplify it. And depending on the viewer, some of these sequences will tend towards mawkish, sententious proselytising. However, I think it ultimately succeeds, and it never wanders into the self-indulgent territory that The Post (2017) did. Overall, Mann strikes a very even chord, never allowing the film to incline towards melodrama.

Ultimately, it’s because he doesn’t need to: the story is shocking and gripping on its own. If the viewer has any empathy at all (unlike the executives at such corporations as Brown and Williamson), they will find it easy to connect to his struggle. Would you do the right thing, and ruin your life in the process? Would you put someone else’s health and happiness before that of your family’s? It’s questions like this that make one man’s desperate attempt to reveal the truth to the world a compelling story, even 25 years later.

USA | 1999 | 158 MINUTES | 2.39:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH • JAPANESE • ARABIC • PERSIAN

Cast & Crew

director: Michael Mann.
writers: Eric Roth & Michael Mann (based on ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ by Marie Brenner)
starring: Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora, Philip Baker Hall, Lindsay Crouse, Debi Mazar, Renee Olstead, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, Stephen Tobolowsky, Colm Feore, Bruce McGill, Gina Gershon & Michael Gambon.