Over a month ago, The Insider was released and reviewed by The Self-Made Critic. However, due to corporate pressure from The Brunching Shuttlecocks, we were unable to broadcast this review, for fear of attracting a lawsuit that would impede an impending sale of an Atari 2600. However, journalistic integrity has finally won out, and we can now bring you the original review, uncut and uncensored. Were the suits right to censor this review? We'll let the American public be the final judge.
Down with corporate greed, down with Big Money, down with the Seven Dwarves! When honesty and integrity are set aside to further the interests of Huge Conglomerates, the public needs to stand and fight for freedom!
The movie that has gotten me all riled up is The Insider, a true story about evil people taking advantage of good people. The good people are Russell Crowe and Al Pacino. The bad people are just about everyone else, except maybe Christopher Plummer, who is on the fence.
Crowe stars as Jeffery Wigand, a high mucky-muck in a big tobacco firm who grows a conscience and blows the whistle on how absolutely evil everyone is who works in tobacco. Pacino stars as Lowell Bergman, a producer for 60 Minutes who gets hold of the story and tries to air it on 60 Minutes, only to have CBS censor the piece.
The Tobacco Bullies lean on Wigand, they lean on Bergman, they lean on CBS, they lean on the state of Kentucky, they lean on an old fence post for some rest. They're evil! Tobacco is evil!
The movie is fine and the acting is fine and the directing is fine. Actually, the directing is really, really fine, because I was very interested for over two hours in a story with no sex, no violence to speak of, and no real surprises. That's not point. Down with evil! Big Business is evil! All corporations are evil! Even organizations as seemingly harmless as The Brunching Shuttlecocks or Atari are evil. When public safety is set aside for the betterment of the all-mighty dollar, desperate measures are needed.
With this movie (no, not a movie, a political statement! A call to arms!) we are being warned that our society has become ruled by greed. When Crowe wants to tell America that smoking is not only bad for you, but that the people who make tobacco are doing their best to make it worse, the tobacco people try to stop him! The horror! Then, when Pacino wants to tell America this important story, CBS stops him! What's next, sheer anarchy?
Rise up! Rise up and put a stop to the madness! Stop the evil!
While watching this latest depiction of the common man's struggle against oppression, I thought about what kind of punishment was best suited for the bad guys. Hanging? Castration? Forced attendance at a Marilyn Manson concert? The possibilities, both humane and inhumane, are limitless.
In all, The Insider, as a movie, gets 4 Babylons. As a prelude to a political movement, it gets 5, 6, perchance 7 Babylons! We must protect the little guy from evil! Solidarity, brothers!
The preceding opinion was that of The Self-Made Critic alone. No one else even remotely connected to The Critic shares his views. We here at the Brunching Shuttlecocks believe that we are not, in fact evil. We think we're pretty darned cool.
Here's your homework, dear reader: re-read the SMC's review of Kull the Conqueror, form an opinion about the SMC based on that review, and then you'll realize that the only political movement involving the SMC will take place entirely in his bathroom.
THE INSIDER
Rated: R
Directed By: Michael Mann
Starring: Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, Christopher Plummer and the true power of
evil.