The Insider
1999 · 157 min
Directed by Michael Mann. Written by Eric Roth, Marie Brenner, Michael Mann. Starring Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, Christopher Plummer, Diane Venora.
A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a 60 Minutes exposé on Big Tobacco.
Critics 96% · audiences 90% · $29 million in the US and Canada on its first run · $31 million elsewhere · about 5.7 million tickets sold, 2.1% of the country · 7 Oscar nominations
What they said about The Insider
- 1999
Mann could probably make a movie about needlepoint riveting. Employing a big canvas, a huge cast of superb character actors and his always exquisite eye for composition, he's made the kind of current-events epic that Hollywood has largely abandoned to TV—and shows us how movies can do it better.
— Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times - 1999
a subtle powerhouse in his wrenching evocation of Wigand, takes on the thick, stolid look of the man he portrays
— The New York - 1999
by far Mann's most fully realized and enthralling work
— The New York - 1999
When Crowe gets to command the screen, The Insider comes to roiled life. It's an All the President's Men in which Deep Throat takes center stage, an insider prodded to spill the truth.
— The New York - 1999
a good but far from great movie because it presents truth telling in America as far more imperiled than it is
— Entertainment Weekly
How it got made
For the scene in which the deposition hearing takes place, the filmmakers used the actual courtroom in Pascagoula, Mississippi, where the deposition was given.
At the box office
The Insider was released in 1,809 theaters on November 5, 1999, where it grossed a total of $6,712,361 on its opening weekend and ranked fourth in the country for that time period. It went on to earn $29.1 million in North America, and $31.2 million in the rest of the world, for a total of $60.3 million worldwide, significantly lower than its $90 million budget. The film was considered to be a commercial disappointment. Disney executives had hoped that Mann's film would have the same commercial and critical success as All the President's Men, a film in the same vein.
However, The Insider had limited appeal to younger moviegoers—studio executives reportedly said that the prime audience was over age 40—and the subject matter was "not notably dramatic", according to marketing executives. Then-Disney chairman Joe Roth said, "It's like walking up a hill with a refrigerator on your back. The fact of the matter is we're really proud we did this movie. People say it's the best movie they've seen this year. They say, 'Why don't we make more movies like this?
After the film received seven Academy-Award nominations but won none, Joe Roth said, "Everyone is really proud of the movie. But it's one of those rare times when adults loved a movie, yet they couldn't convince their friends to go see it, any more than we could convince people in marketing the film."