(“The funny thing is,” Nicholson says now, “it’s true.”) Crowe is a titan in Gladiator, his fierce commitment making even the stupidest moments in this sword-and-sandals epic utterly convincing. They’re both entirely believable as grown-ass men, volatile and complicated, with fierce ideals that drive them to difficult choices.Īnd it all worked. Though Crowe is a quarter-century younger than Pacino, Wigand seems Bergman’s equal, and not just because of the 35 pounds Crowe reportedly put on, or the silver wig and aging makeup he wears throughout. It’s that intelligence that Mann brings so clearly to the screen, that intelligence which arms Crowe for his scenes opposite Al Pacino, who plays Lowell Bergman, a wheeling-and-dealing 60 Minutes producer. Above all, Wigand is intelligent: Even when he’s caught by surprise, he’s always searching his mind for the right move. As Jeffrey Wigand, the scientist who blows the whistle on cigarette companies, Crowe is conflicted and stormy, brave and angry, calculating yet impulsive. Crowe pulled Gladiator off, in part, by becoming larger than life, adopting Maximus’ enormous confidence-arrogance, perhaps-for his own.Īnd then came 1999 and Michael Mann’s The Insider.
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