The Insider

FADE IN:

All we can see is black filling the screen... Black on

black...

INT. A JEEP, LEBANON - DAY

And we're in a speeding SOVIET JEEP... Two men in front,

shouldering assault rifles. HEZBOLLAH SOLDIERS... And there

are three MEN in the back. A middle-aged Man wearing a tired

suit and tinted sunglasses trying to hold on. And on either

side of him, two Men, blindfolded. The man on one side is in

his forties, hands pressed in the pockets of a well-travelled

black-leather jacket... A stocky man, with the edge of a

J.D. Salinger character, he's seen everything at least once.

But even he has lost some of his self-confidence, here,

turning his head, sensing the wind, a blast of Arabic music

that disappears behind him... He's LOWELL BERGMAN. On the

other side of the man in the tired suit is a lanky Man with a

voltmeter around his neck, NORMAN.

EXT. THE BEQA'A VALLEY, BAALBEK, LEBANON - DAY

The Jeep races up narrow winding streets of a Lebanese

village. It's shadowed by a Jeep in front, and in back, each

carrying personnel armed with AK's and a few RPG's... And in

the third Jeep are two blindfolded, not very threatening

Lebanese soldiers. And as the speeding convoy passes a

captured Israeli Armored Personnel Carrier covered with

Arabic graffiti, looking down on them from huge murals are

the stern visages of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and a Hezbollah

religious leader, the Sheikh Fadlallah... And, suddenly the

convoy skids to a stop... And blindfolded Lowell and Norman

are roughly taken out, and pushed, stumbling, through the

cloud of dust without sight... The lanky cameraman is

stopped, told to wait, while Lowell is pushed past armed men

guarding a small stone house, and inside...

INT. A HOUSE IN LEBANON - DAY

A round-faced Man in his mid-forties, with large-framed

glasses, black hair and a grey-black beard, wearing a

dullbend, a turban, sits informally at a kitchen table...

It's the Sheikh Fadlallah whose face stares out at us from

walls. A Gunman cradling an AK-47 sits in an incongruous

purple armchair in a corner. A torn poster of the Seychelles

is on one wall. Another Gunman stands by a window. Lowell

is sat down in a chair at the kitchen table...

THE SHEIKH:

Coffee?

LOWELL:

Yeah... Thank you.

THE SHEIKH:

How have you liked your stay?

LOWELL:

(droll)

What I've seen...I've liked.

The Sheikh smiles. And the smile passes as quickly as it

came. A steaming cup of coffee in a small Arabic demitasse

is put down.

THE SHEIKH:

Please to explain, why I should agree to

interview...with pro-Zionist American

media?

LOWELL:

Because I think Hezbollah is trying to

broaden into a political party right now.

So you care about what you're thought of

in America. And in America, at this

moment in time, Hezbollah does not have a

face.

(confident)

That's why.

And we've first realized this man is not a hostage; he's come

here voluntarily.

THE SHEIKH:

Perhaps you prove journalism objectivity

and I see the questions first. Then I

decide if I grant the interview.

LOWELL:

(blunt)

No. We don't do that.

(beat)

You've seen "60 Minutes" and Mike

Wallace. So you know our reputation for

integrity and objectivity. You also know

we are the highest-rated, most-respected,

TV-magazine news show in America.

The Sheikh quietly looks out his glasses at him, studying

him. And Lowell "closes":

LOWELL (cont'd)

So. Mr. Wallace. Should he get on a

plane or not?

The Sheikh thinks it over and then...

THE SHEIKH:

Tell him I will see him day after

tomorrow.

LOWELL:

That's good. That works.

(after a beat)

Uh, you know, I want to ask you

something...I know it sounds odd...but...

It's quiet...too quiet...

LOWELL (CONT'D)

Hello, Sheikh...?

(no answer)

Hello, Sheikh...?

Silence. He hesitates, starts to lift his blindfold... He

lifts it. And he sees the Sheikh, and his gunmen, are gone.

The house empty. Only his Cameraman, the lanky man, left

there, standing by the door still in his blindfold...

LOWELL (CONT'D)

Norman.

NORMAN:

What? What?

LOWELL:

Take your blindfold off.

The lanky man does and we see the cameraman is Asian-

American.

LOWELL (CONT'D)

(sarcastic)

Welcome to the world.

Norman gives Lowell an ironic look and tests the local

current at an electrical outlet.

NORMAN:

Fluctuating all over the place. Anywhere

we shoot, here, it's gonna be portable

gennies and we'll run cable...

Lowell nods and opens the curtains from this commanding

height. Baalbek and the Beqa'a Valley below gold-domed

mosques. A moment of triumph. He dials his cell phone...

MIKE WALLACE'S VOICE (OVER)

Hello?

LOWELL:

(into phone)

Mike, it's me. We're on...

AND WE HEAR PEOPLE LAUGHING AND ENCOURAGING "GO AHEAD...

OPEN IT..."

INT. A LABORATORY, BROWN & WILLIAMSON, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY

- DAY

We're in a SCIENCE LABORATORY... OUT OF FOCUS LAB

TECHNICIANS, in white lab coats, celebrating a heavyset Black

woman's birthday... Half her presents are opened. Balloons,

incongruous, floating above the lab... And there's a sense

that somebody is watching... And from the waist up, a

disembodied figure comes into FOCUS behind a glass partition,

as if quarantined, isolated, an expressionless MAN in his

late forties, watching them...

INT. JEFFREY WIGAND'S OFFICE - DAY

The office soundproofed, he watches the people laughing,

their lips moving. His hair not yet settled on grey, his

face is changing, always interesting. Born in the Bronx,

educated in Upstate New York, he retains little of the accent

and much of the directness. He's JEFFREY WIGAND. He turns

to resume gathering things from his desk...some technical

books, a medical text on asthma...putting them in his

briefcase. And as he leaves the office, the silent party

like a bizarre mime behind him...

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