The Insider

Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a former head of R&D and high-ranking executive at a tobacco company, is prepared to testify on the popular news program "60 Minutes" about his former employer's scandalous and dangerous business practices. He is supported by journalist Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino), whose belief in justice is shattered when his network refuses to air the interview. Michael Mann frames the initial contact between the producer and the whistleblower as the kind of fragile bridge that a cop and a gangster had to cross in "Heat". With the narrative pared down to the essentials, space is created for the characters: atmospherically charged locations bathed by cinematographer Dante Spinotti in the light of late day and diffuse night.