Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: The Insider (1999) - Mann rips apart big tobacco and media giant in fiery corporate thriller

5/20/2024

The Insider (1999) - Mann rips apart big tobacco and media giant in fiery corporate thriller

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The faces of its two A-list stars in black and white is the whole poster here for Michael Mann's The Insider

A top scientist with one of America's largest tobacco companies is willing to go to great lengths to reveal his knowledge of the addictive-creating properties in the cigarettes.

The Insider is written by Eric Roth (A Star Is Born (2018)) and great Illinoisan filmmaker, co-writer/co-producer/director Michael Mann (Thief (1981)). It is based on the 1996 Vanity Fair article The Man Who Knew Too Much by Marie Brenner (American Tragedy: The Ballad of Richard Jewell (1997)).

It's another Mann picture about two contradictory men, whose paths cross. In this case we are treated to two of the world's greatest actors, Russell Crowe (The Nice Guys (2016)) and Al Pacino (The Irishman (2019)), giving it their all in a gripping, intelligently told and thrilling story of commercial deceit.

The last 45 minutes of the film seem a bit long, - Mann might have skated through the internal CBS debacle a bit speedier. Christopher Plummer (Starcrash (1978)) portrays 60 Minutes anchorman Mike Wallace in this part of the film, and it's hard to imagine that the real-life Wallace was overly pleased with the portrait.

Related posts:

Michael Mann: Public Enemies (2009) - Mann heads to the 1930s

Top 10: Best drama-thrillers reviewed by Film Excess to date

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Collateral (2004) - Great, urban, digital age thriller from Mann in his right element

Top 10: Best heist movies

1995 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Heat (1995) - Mann's superb masculine thriller showstopper

Manhunter (1986) - Perhaps the best criminal profiling picture ever

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 68-90 mil. $ (different reports)

Box office: 60.2 mil. $

= Huge flop (returned 0.66-0.88 times its cost)

[The Insider premiered 28 October (Los Angeles) and runs 158 minutes. Shooting took place from May - October 1998 in Israel, California, including in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Mississippi, Alabama, New York, Indiana, Bahamas and Kentucky. The film's allotted budget was 68 mil. $, but it is listed some places as 90 mil. $, indicating that perhaps Mann went way over-budget. The film opened #4, behind fellow new release The Bone Collector, holdover hit House on Haunted Hill and new release The Bachelor, to a 6.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it left the top 5 in its 2nd weekend and grossed 29 mil. $ (48.2 % of the total gross). The film was nominated for 7 Oscars, winning none. It lost Best Actor (Crowe) to Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, Cinematography (Dante Spinotti (Traffik (2018)) to Conrad L. Hall for American Beauty, Director to Sam Mendes for American Beauty, Editing to The Matrix, Picture to American Beauty, Sound to The Matrix and Adapted Screenplay to John Irving for The Cider House Rules. It was also nominated for a BAFTA and 5 Golden Globes and won 3 National Board of Review awards, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Mann returned with Ali (2001). Crowe returned in Gladiator (2000); Pacino in Any Given Sunday (1999). The Insider is certified fresh at 96 % with an 8.10/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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5/20/2024

The Insider (1999) - Mann rips apart big tobacco and media giant in fiery corporate thriller

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