The Insider (1999)

Posted : 4 months, 1 week ago at Feb 23 7:03

"I told the truth." A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a "60 Minutes" expose on Big Tobacco. Al Pacino: Lowell Bergman Against this backdrop director Michael Mann gives us The Insider, a film every bit the equal in seriousness to All the President's Men. Russell Crowe plays Tobacco Executive Jeffrey Wigand. Al Pacino is Sixty Minutes Producer Lowell Bergman. Wigand has just been fired from his $300,000 a year job. Bergman wants help deciphering a tobacco industry document. The two of them start an uneasy relationship. The film suggests Wigand's employer began spooking his family BEFORE the executive agreed to become a whistleblower for Sixty Minutes. I doubt that is true. Soon the two men are developing the story. The M...Read more

Rating : 9/10

Posted : 2 years ago at Jun 27 22:10

This is the true story of Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a man who signed a confidentiality agreement before getting fired from a big tobacco company. Hotshot *60 minutes* producer Bergman (Al Pacino) asks Wigand to decipher some technical documents, and soon realizes there's a bigger story hiding inside Wigand. On top of that, Wigand is recruited to testity in Mississippi for a case that claims cigarettes *are* addictive. The *60 minutes* piece will eventually be pulled because of corporate pressure. Wigand deals with his personal dilemma, and Bergman battles the corporation. Both men will struggle against Big Tobacco's attempts to silence them and against the CBS television network's cowardly complict preference of putting money as a higher priority over the truth. True colors of ...Read more

Rating : 8/10