insider
A dramatization of 1995 events in which the tobacco industry allegedly covered up proof that nicotine is addictive and harmful. When Brown and Williamson executive Jeffrey Wigand (Crowe) tries to expose the industry's cover-up, he is threatened into silence. He eventually gets his story to 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (AL Pacino), but CBS decides against airing it due to political and economic pressures, and the threat of lawsuit from Brown and Williamson.Before we start, I think it's important that you know a little thing about me, and where I'm coming from. I do smoke. But I believe that most of the lawsuits filed against the tobacco industry are unfounded, desperate attempts for people to put the blame on anyone but themselves. I think social security is a safety net for the financially irresponsible. I thought The Insider was a great movie from a strictly entertainment perspective (don't get ahead of me on this one!), and I enjoyed it very much.Russell Crowe is Jeffrey Wigand, a Brown and Williamson VP of Research and Development whose conscience compels him to blow the whistle on the industry. He claims that Big Tobacco has been covering up scientific research that proves nicotine is addictive
Sounds good, doesn't it? After all, the smoker has a filter on the end of that cancer stick, and you've just got a cloud of smoke. However, this is clearly Wigand's story, and closer inspection would reveal that the main characters here are just a little too perfect to be real. And why do you keep yelling HOO-WAH?"It would be nice to believe that such White Knights exist, those who unconditionally put What's Right ahead of themselves. Tortured and sleepless, his reactions are what you would expect from someone forced to choose between the safety of his family with the gravity of what he knows. After all, the guy has a family to look out for. Unfortunately, It's fine to be opposed to Big Tobacco and despise them for addicting millions to their products; but please, base your hatred on facts and not fiction. An energetic Al Pacino, who fights to get the story on the air, only to have it snuffed by CBS, plays Bergman here. From a dramatic standpoint, this movie couldn't have asked for better performances. The Insider runs at over two and half hours, but always remains interesting and never drags. And while Bergman is never portrayed as much more than a journalist with an uncharacteristic amount of integrity, Wigand is a great character to follow as he tries to balance out everything around him. As a standard caricature of faceless law more interested in money than people, she's fabulous. He gets to climb up on the soapbox and belt out a few speeches about truth and justice and freedom and right and wrong and all that other fun stuff. But common sense and just a brief moment of self-inspired thought should tell you one thing: the smoker is inhaling the smoke through the filter in addition to the "second hand" smoke floating around the both of you. Did Bergman really storm into the offices of CBS and rant and rave the way AL Pacino does in this movie? Some words might have been exchanged, but it's hard to believe anything as dramatic as what's depicted in The Insider could have happened for real.
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