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.]

What do you think of The Insider?

The Postman (1997) - Costner's colossal apocalyptic turkey

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Star/co-producer/director Kevin Costner walks around with a mule in a barren landscape under a desecrated US flag on this poster for his The Postman

In a post-apocalyptic future in the year 2013, America has collapsed, but a nomad in a postman's uniform that he has found is going to lead a rebellion against the tyrannical new leader!

 

The Postman is written by Brian Helgeland (A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)) and Eric Roth (Forrest Gump (1994)), adapting the same-titled 1985 novel by David Brin (Kiln People (2002)), and directed by co-producer/director/star Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves (1990)).

It is incredible that Costner was given the huge budget for this even more unfathomable script after the then recent disaster of the Costner-starring action-adventure Waterworld (1995), which is a much better movie. Here he mourns his donkey, as said donkey gets boiled into a stew, and he keeps quoting Shakespeare to Will Patton's (Minari (2020)) irate General Bethlehem, when the general isn't decapitating unfortunate ones. Why the world has come to a place where it consists of a relatively small group of people in a gravel pit who yell for The Sound of Music, which is what we meet in The Postman, we never get an explanation. Nor do we get enlightened when it comes to the involuntarily comical, mysterious relationship with delivering the mail and being a postman, which Costner revels in here. The dialog about this point should be taken down as among the daftest in cinema history. 

The score (by James Newton Howard (Pain Hustlers (2023))) indicates knee-high adventure, and the photography (by Stephen F. Windom (Needle (2010))) is grand and good-looking, - but the story around these elements is utter rubbish. The Postman is endlessly awful.

 

Related posts:

Kevin Costner: Molly's Game (2017) - Chastain is luminous in Sorkin's great true-crime debut (co-star)

Man of Steel (2013) or, Superman v Zod: Sunset of Destruction (co-star)

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

Open Range (2003) - Costner impresses with fabulous classic western

Thirteen Days (2000) - Electrifying Cuban Missile Crisis thriller (actor/producer)  

Dances with Wolves (1990) - Costner's triumphant, simpatico western

 

Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 80 mil. $

Box office: 20.8 mil. $

= Mega-flop (returned 0.26 times its cost)

[The Postman premiered 12 December (California) and runs 177 minutes. Shooting took place from March - July 1997 in Oregon and Washington. Reportedly Costner refused to cut down the film's length at the studio's insistence, following two "disastrous" test screenings. The film opened #9 to a 5.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, its highest rank there, where it grossed 17.6 mil. $ (84.6 % of the total gross). Roger Ebert gave the film a 1.5/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Costner returned with Open Range (2003) as a filmmaker and in Message in a Bottle (1999) as an actor. The Postman is rotten at 10 % with a 4.20/10 average rating at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Postman?

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) - A mammoth true-crime achievement and masterpiece

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An ominous red tone warms up the huge visage of co-star Leonardo DiCaprio on this poster for Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon

Returning from war in Europe to his brother and powerful uncle in Oklahoma's Osage Nation, where oil has made fortunes for the indigenous people, Ernest Burkhart learns the value of familial alliances, and that despite - or rather because of - their newfound wealth, the Osage Indians are up against tall odds.

 

Killers of the Flower Moon is written by Eric Roth (Munich (2005)) and New-Yorker master filmmaker, co-writer/co-producer/director Martin Scorsese (Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967)), whose 28th feature it is. It is based on a 2017 non-fiction book by David Grann (The Lost City of Z (2009)).  

It is hard to review Killers of the Flower Moon without spoiling its horrific true story, which is its core. It is a kind of classic Scorsese gangster picture - with Indians, - although of course it would be reductive to only name it so. For the film treads new ground from the master's greatest gangster epics (Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995) and The Departed (2006)) in that it wrestles with one of the grave historical wrongs done unto the indigenous Americans by the land's new citizens from (mainly) Europe. SPOILER By telling the story of the insidious mass murder of the Osage Indians for their oil money, Scorsese rightly gives his true-crime story great attention to detail, affords it length and width necessary to sink in completely in its more or less unsuspecting audience, and the effect of world class performers in front and behind the camera. It is a story that becomes a downwards-going spiral staircase, a dark story of sin and evil that only grows larger as it goes on, torturous in the best sense possible, one might say.

SPOILER Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic (1997)) is phenomenal as a character we instantly like, although we may have uneasy speculations as to his past and moral framework, but whom we are forced to reckon with as his base egotism, moral bankruptcy and fundamental dishonesty gets gradually laid bare. This happens, in effect, due to his alliance with his even-worse uncle, the Free Mason and local power person portrayed just as nuanced, two-faced and more icy in his calculations by Robert De Niro (Taxi Driver (1976)). The fact that the film becomes about two heinous men who through the epic runtime are played by two of the world's best actors doesn't make it any easier to take, but of course a masterful true-crime saga shouldn't be. The woman Ernest marries is an upstanding Osage played by Lily Gladstone (Freeland (2020)), who, too, gives a tremendous, soulful and contrasting performance.

The film is made with an abundance of resources, with production design by Jack Fisk (The Master (2012)), cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (Barbie (2023)) and a marvelous score by Robbie Richardson (The Color of Money (1986)) that all contribute to the hugely cinematic feel of the experience.

The dense atmosphere of sin and greed (comparisons to Erich von Stroheim's epic Greed (1924), also about oil, are appropriate) gets a little let-up late in the film, as Jesse Plemons (Vice (2018)) turns up as an FBI investigator, who soon sees the greater picture, and sets justice's wheels in motion. - But don't count on a neat happy ending, as Scorsese himself turns up as a radio producer to wrap up the extensive proceedings. Things weren't righted back then, though the law supposedly did its job, and anyway, it may be unclear whether a mass murder can be righted. But Killers of the Flower Moon, a spectacular film of integrity, depth, insight, curiosity, wisdom and skill, does a service to history and cinema in shining a bright light on this terrible wrong. 

 

Related posts:

Martin Scorsese: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

2019 in films - according to Film Excess

The Irishman (I Heard You Paint Houses) (2019, VOD) - Scorsese's great gangster epic of growing old and death 

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Top 10: The best biopic movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - One helluva movie!  

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011) - Stapleton's Corman doc. is among the year's best films (interview subject)
Hugo (2011) - Scorsese's critically acclaimed, magical 3D family adventure/financial disaster 

Shutter Island (2010) - Scorsese's heavy-handed, long, second huge thriller attempt
Boardwalk Empire - 1st season (2010) - Luxurious 1920's ensemble gangster treats (executive producer)

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

Top 10: Best crime movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

The Departed (2006) - Scorsese's Boston-set wildcat of a capital letter Movie

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]  

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005, documentary) - Travel back in time with Scorsese and Dylan 
The Aviator (2004) - The grand American biopic 

Gangs of New York (2002) - Death, violence and squalor in charmless period epic 

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

Top 10: Best 'box office success' movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

Top 10: The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Casino (1995) - Scorsese's sumptuous Vegas gangster tale has the wingspan of a Greek tragedy   
The Age of Innocence (1993) or, Stayin' IN the Pants
Cape Fear (1991) - Scorsese adds lots of stuff to remake but loses the balance  

Top 10: Best gangster movies   

Goodfellas (1990) or, Citizen Gangster

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 200 mil. $

Box office: 119.6 mil. $ and counting

= Too early to say

[Killers of the Flower Moon premiered 20 May (Cannes Film Festival, out of competition) and runs 206 minutes. Grann's book was optioned prior to its publication in 2016 for 5 mil. $. DiCaprio was paid 30 mil. $ for his performance. Apple stepped in to co-finance the film, as its budget grew. Shooting took place from April - October 2021 in Oklahoma, including in Osage County, and with close collaboration with the Osage people. The film opened #2, behind Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, to a 23.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it is currently still in the top 5. Scorsese has two features currently in pre-production, Roosevelt and The Wager, the latter also a Grann adaptation. DiCaprio is set to return in both those films, and in another film entitled Jim Jones; De Niro returned in About My Father (2023); and Gladstone in TV-series Billions (2019-23) and Reservoir Dogs (2022-23), but has no theatrical return announced yet. Killers of the Flower Moon is certified fresh at 93 % with an 8.60/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Killers of the Flower Moon?   

Dune/Dune: Part One (2021) - Villeneuve revitalizes another SF boulder

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Stars assembled in a restrained color palette make up most of this poster for Denis Villeneuve's Dune

Paul Atreides is the heir in the House of Atreides, sent to rule the planet Arrakis, where the spice harvest is vital for space travel in the universe. But he and his mother soon find that they may have been set up to fail...

 

Dune is written by Jon Spaiths (The Darkest Hour (2011)), Eric Roth (Suspect (1987)) and Canadian master filmmaker, co-writer/co-producer/director Denis Villeneuve (August 32nd on Earth/Un 32 Août sur Terre (1998)), adapting Frank Herbert's (The Dragon in the Sea (1955-56)) same-titled 1965 novel.

Herbert's sci-fi classic has been adapted before (without much luck) by David Lynch as Dune (1984); and Chilean-French Alexander Jodorowsky's major Dune adaptation fell to pieces in the 1970s, chronicled in documentary Jodorowsky's Dune (2013). Now the novel is 56 years old and hardly modern anymore. It takes place about 8,000 years into the future but its widely spanning plot and universe feels more like a viking saga than a realistic situation we will actually find ourselves in far into the future.

Villeneuve has gathered a large, fine cast with the transfixing Timothée Chalamet (One and Two (2015)) in front as Paul Atreides. Stellan Skarsgård (The Railway Man (2013)) is made out as a giant fat villain as Harkonnen, and Jason Momoa (Pipeline (2007)) is enjoyable as the film's alpha warrior with the fitting name Duncan Idaho. His fight scenes are among the film's most exciting moments, along with flight in the Dune world's peculiar insect-like helicopters and one sandworm monster attack.

The dichotomy of harsh militaristic evil with greedy-capitalistic characteristics set against a people 'of the earth' with simple survival and fighting skills and no major power structure (here the so-called Fremen tribe which Paul goes to meet) is familiar SF fantasy territory to say the least, and there's no alleviating humor, romance or sex in Dune, which is very serious throughout its elaborate but easily followed story, most of which takes place on a desert planet, (so also no exotic lush worlds but a deliciously crackling sound design.) - As an experience it may therefore leave you feeling parched.

Despite the fascinating production design, costumes and engaged stars, Dune suffers from some of the same malaise that hindered Villeneuve's preceding film Blade Runner 2049 (2017) from really scoring; it is very long and serious, and it made me zone out and doze off once or twice, despite its respectable credentials. I predict it highly doubtful that Villeneuve's announced 2nd and 3rd Dune movies will ever see the light of day.

 

Related posts:

Denis Villeneuve: 2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - Villeneuve's speculative sci-fi sequel is fascinating but flawed 

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2016 in films - according to Film Excess
Arrival (2016) - Villeneuve, Heisserer and Adams head sensational sci-fi wonder
Incendies (2010) - Villeneuve's dreary and depressing, wildly overrated drama 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 165 mil. $

Box office: 103.9 mil. $ and counting

= Too early to say

[Dune premiered 3 September (Venice Film Festival) and runs 155 minutes. Peter Berg was initially hired to direct the film for Paramount. Villeneuve had read the book as a teenager and said, "Dune is my world." Shooting took place from March - July 2019 in Austria, Slovakia, Norway, Jordan, Budapest, Hungary and in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Hans Zimmer elected to drop scoring Christopher Nolan's Tenet in order to score Dune, a favorite novel of his. Despite protests from Villeneuve, Dune will release in North America simultaneously theatrically and VoD at HBO Max for its first month, as is the case with all Warner Bros. 2021 titles due to the China Virus pandemic. The film's release has been pushed out almost a year due to the pandemic, and the release strategy's effect on the possibility for Villeneuve's planned Dune trilogy is yet unknown. The film has released to solid numbers in several mostly European markets yet, but has several major markets left to open in, including North America and China. A traditional theatrical evaluation requires the film to pass 412.5 mil. $ in gross to become profitable, however the streaming strategy is making the evaluation murky. IMDb users have rated the film in at #107 on the site's Top 250, sitting between Dangal (2016) and The Father (2020). Villeneuve is scheduled to return with The Son (miniseries). Chalamet returns in Don't Look Up (2021, VoD). Dune is fresh at 90 % with a 7.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Dune?

The Good Shepherd (2006) - De Niro's CIA drama excels

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+ Best Period Movie of the Year 

A piece of Matt Damon's bespectacled profile superimposed with the insignia of the CIA are the main visual elements on this sparse, seriousness-indicating poster for Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd

Wilson aka. 'Mother' becomes the newly begun Central Intelligence Agency's eminence during WWII, but following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba in 1961, Wilson is confronted with his late father and his own worst sides.

The Good Shepherd is written by Eric Roth (The Horse Whisperer (1998)) and directed by great New-Yorker filmmaker Robert De Niro (A Bronx Tale (1993)), who here takes up extensive duties as co-producer, director and co-star.
The film is a unique tale of the US and USSR intelligence agencies, as the Cold War got underway, and their mutual dependence, built around a human drama. That drama doesn't throw around grand gestures, but it comes with an eerie finale, SPOILER as Wilson gets his son's fiancée thrown off a plane.
Matt Damon (The Bourne Identity (2002)) gives one of his career's best performances as an understandably dumb bastard (Wilson), and the rest of the fine cast are also impressive. Ann Roth's (Hope Springs (2012)) costumes are very well done, and some of writer Roth's lines spouted by Damon's cowboy-like spy come off with sparks.

Related posts:

Robert De Niro: The Irishman (I Heard You Paint Houses) (2019, VOD) - Scorsese's great gangster epic of growing old and death (co-star)
Silver Linings Playbook (2012) - Tender moments, great De Niro in uneven romantic dramedy (co-star)

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
15 Minutes (2001) or, Bad Cynics in New York City (co-star) 
Cop Land (1997) - Stallone faces corruption and turns in some good acting in fine crime drama (co-star) 
Casino (1995) - Scorsese's sumptuous Vegas gangster tale has the wingspan of a Greek tragedy (co-star)
Cape Fear (1991) - Scorsese adds lots of stuff to remake but loses the balance (co-star)
Backdraft (1991) - Ron Howard's giant, stupid Chicago-set firefighter movie (co-star)
Angel Heart (1987) - Parker's stylish devil-lurking holds limited punch (co-star)
The Deer Hunter (1978) - Cimino's great, colossal Vietnam epic (star)

Watch a German language version trailer for the film here

Cost: Reportedly around 90 mil. $
Box office: 100.2 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.11 times its cost)
[The Good Shepherd premiered 11 December (New York) and runs 167 minutes. The project was begun in 1994 for Francis Ford Coppola. Other talents who were near it include Wayne Wang, Philip Kaufman, John Frankenheimer, Graham King and Leonardo DiCaprio. The 110 mil. $ budget was cut down to "under 90", necessitating Damon and other stars waive their usually higher salaries. Still Angelina Jolie (Salt (2010)) was reportedly paid a hefty 8 mil. $ for her performance. De Niro traveled to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia to Moscow as research, as well as studied CIA history. Shooting took place in the Dominican Republic, London, England, New York, Connecticut and Washington DC from August 2005 - January 2006. The film opened #4, behind fellow new release Night at the Museum, holdover hit The Pursuit of Happiness and new release Rocky Balboa, to a 9.9 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 3 weeks in the top 5 (#4-#5-#5) and grossed 59.9 mil. $ (59.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 5 mil. $ (5 %) and Italy with 4.1 mil. $ (4.1 %). The film was nominated for the Best Art Direction Oscar, lost to Pan's Labyrinth. It won the Silver Bear prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. It was lambasted by CIA historians for its veracity. De Niro expressed ideas to make two sequels to the film; since 2012 a TV-series spin-off has been brewing at Showtime, with De Niro in talks to direct the pilot. De Niro has not returned as a director since but returned as an actor in Stardust (2007). Damon returned in Ocean's Thirteen (2007); Jolie in A Mighty Heart (2007). The Good Shepherd is rotten at 55 % with a 6.14/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Good Shepherd?

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) or, The Boy Who Lost His Father

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Non-adult Actor: Thomas Horn (lost to Amara Miller for The Descendants)

An extremely clear image of Thomas Horn on the poster for Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

QUICK REVIEW:

An extremely intelligent boy loses his father in 9/11, and a year later he ventures out on what he perceives as his father's last expedition for him, with a key in his hand.

Young Thomas Horn (Space Warriors (2013)) is exceptional and a joy to see act and charm us in this really sweet film, which is about something very sad: Settling with a grief and a loss that seems senseless.
Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan (1998)) and Sandra Bullock (Gravity (2013)) play the sweetest and best father and mother in the world here, it seems, respectively.
The scene with Jeffrey Wright (Broken Flowers (2005)) is too long, (the movie runs 129 minutes), and there are other minor flaws, but Extremely Loud is still a humorous, touching film.
It is an adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's (Tree of Codes (2010)) 2005 novel by Eric Roth (The Insider (1999)), and the film is directed by English master filmmaker Stephen Daldry (The Hours (2002)). His latest work is the Brazilian-set Trash (2014).

Related posts:

Stephen Daldry: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
The Reader (2008) or, Guilt, Words and Love

Watch the official trailer for the film here, - and note that although James Gandolfini is credited in it, his scenes were ultimately cut from the film (due to test audiences responding negative to the scenes of him and Bullock's romance)

Cost: 40 mil. $
Box office. 55.2 mil. $
= Big flop
[Extremely Loud garnered lukewarm reviews in the US, where it made 31.8 mil. $ (58 % of the total gross.) When it was Oscar-nominated as Best Film and Best Supporting Actor (Max Von Sydow (Pelle the Conqueror/Pelle Erobreren (1987))), several critics lambasted the Academy for their nominations of it. However, those critics were wrong: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a good film.]

What do you think of Extremely Close & Incredibly Loud?
If you've seen Daldry's latest, Trash, please, let us know how it was