Movie Review - Mike Wallace Is Here

If you're a person who grew up watching Mike Wallace on his show 60 Minutes, then nothing here will be surprising. Most and practically all the material here are clips from not only 60 Minutes, but his other TV shows going back to the 1950's. This documentary is basically a recitation of his career on camera. To help counter-balance all that recitation, there are also archival interviews of Wallace himself conducted by other people before his death in 2012 at the age 93. It's funny though to see Wallace sit and get asked questions that he himself asked others and rarely answer them. Director Avi Belkin also has footage from Wallace's work that looks like pre-roll footage. Obviously, there is what was aired on 60 Minutes at the time, but to make a piece for 60 Minutes requires footage from several cameras. Belkin seemed to have access to all the raw footage, which was clearly preserved. This footage provides for some candid behind-the-scenes moments and insight into Wallace.

There seems to be two overarching questions about Wallace that the film explores. The first is what kind of work does Wallace do and can it be classified as journalism. The second is what is Wallace's legacy. Belkin's film essentially opens this piece with the second question. Yet, that second question is virtually ignored until the very end, which makes sense, but it almost feels done to distance Wallace from the implications of what the answer to the second question might be. Belkin presents Wallace in a honest and practically impartial way, but overall his film does seem to revere or at least favor him. The way Belkin edits things here though, one could interpret that maybe his view of Wallace isn't so favorable.

Wallace built a reputation of being a tough interviewer. He would often ask questions that would confront the negative things about his subjects. His questions would or could also go to the most personal things or most uncomfortable things that he could find out. His interviews would almost demand that his subjects be on the defensive. He would lob criticisms at them and have his subjects address or dispute them. His manner came across as insulting or attacking. Belkin edits a lot of clips together of Wallace asking these tough questions from various episodes of his shows. This is meant to show how tough or bold Wallace is, which is meant to be an argument of his skill, strength or power as a journalist.

No doubt it is, but there is an aspect of Belkin's editing or an interpretation of his editing here that could run counter to the argument of Wallace's greatness at his job. Obviously, given the length of this documentary, Belkin couldn't edit in all of Wallace's subjects responding to his questions. Most of the editing here simply has Wallace asking a question and no response from his subjects. There are a couple of times when his subjects got offended and refused to answer his questions. After a while, the impression came across that there was no point of asking tough questions if you got no responses or nothing but the offense of the subject. It becomes a matter of wondering what Wallace's interviews actually produced that was substantively new from his subjects.

He's credited with pioneering investigative journalism on TV. He even began busting criminals on camera, performing the equivalent of sting operations. It was a stunt or a gimmick that yielded great ratings and put 60 Minutes on the map and into the stratosphere. It made him into a kind of hero. I would be curious to know how many of those stunts actually resulted in conviction. Wallace mentions the numerous times his company was sued. He said he's always won any lawsuit, so his efforts can hardly be disputed. Yet, he was more known for his interviews and it's unclear how many people he "busted" simply by sitting opposite them and asking questions. It's arguable to say what insight he gained from his subjects. If he landed exclusive interviews, then the answer could be a lot.

In that regard, there are several claims to fame that Wallace has. One is the series of pieces he did in the wake of the Watergate scandal. However, Belkin rushes by the significance of Wallace's role in the media coverage. Was he simply part of it or did he contribute something that no one else did? It's obvious that The Washington Post and The New York Times had contributions that no one else did, but this film would suggest that Wallace's role was up there with those two newspapers, which is a bit doubtful but only because Belkin's film doesn't make the full argument.

When it comes to Wallace's exclusive interview with the Ayatollah or his interview of Jeffrey Wigand, the whistle-blower of the tobacco industry, Wallace is of course to be commended. However, the lawsuit against him by General Westmoreland and even the film about Wigand called The Insider (1999) depict that Wallace's efforts were more the result of his producers. Yet, it still doesn't take away his accomplishments or the accomplishments in his name with respect to those two examples. The Wigand case is a special one, given the scandal surrounding CBS News' initial refusal to run the story and the greater implications of that refusal.

Belkin includes archive footage of a panel discussion where Frederick Taylor of The Wall Street Journal says he thinks what Wallace does isn't good journalism but just show-business. It's stunts and gimmicks, which is a reading of Wallace's career that isn't really that much refuted. Given his history as a kind of actor, it's not that far flung to say that he's very much a showman where it's more about making him seem like a tough interviewer than it is about getting information out of people.

What's probably the most damning thing about this documentary is the opening where we see Wallace interviewing Bill O'Reilly. Wallace questions O'Reilly about his abrasive nature on his show, calling himself a journalist, but his brand being how he yells and bullies his guests or interview subjects. Wallace questions if what he's doing is actually journalism. O'Reilly responds by saying that his inspiration or his role model has been Mike Wallace himself. The rest of the documentary then proceeds to prove that Wallace was the progenitor for O'Reilly and those similar to him on FOX News.

The documentary concludes with the state of the news media, the distrust and President Donald Trump's signature "fake news" slogan. The ending could be interpreted as Wallace contributing to that distrust, particularly in the wake of Westmoreland's lawsuit. Another interpretation could be that Wallace inspired a lot of copycats who try to do what he does and does so wrongly. The proliferation of the media is certainly a factor, but Belkin doesn't go into the rise of the Internet and how that's fomented a lot of the distrust as well. The way things play out, Belkin's movie seems to want to distance Wallace from whatever distrust there is in the media, so I'm not totally sure what to make of him.

Rated PG-13 for some violent images, language and smoking.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 31 mins.

Available on DVD and VOD.