Overwrought, overworked, moody, complicated, confusing

Rating: 6/10 (23 September 2017)

There are basically two interlinked stories here. One is about Mike Wallace a charismatic television personality, who caved in to corporate power. The other is the story of Jeff Wigand, a bumbling character who was persuaded to take on a company I'd never heard of called Brown & Williamson, a subsidiary of British American Tobacco. He eventually succeeded in changing the public's perceptions of the effects of smoking. Although the public may have been quite aware of those effects already. Crowe looks a bit like Wigand, and Plummer looks quite like Wallace. Pacino, who played the persuader, Lowell Bergman, a reporter, doesn't look like him. It seems that Crowe spent a lot of time with Wigand so that he could imitate him in the film. Bergman has said that the film was emotionally, politically and, in general, dead-on accurate. He terminally fell out with Wallace.
Wallace is said to have hated this portrayal of him. But the force of corporate power is a given. Not many are as resolute as, say, Thomas More. It's an extremely unusual man who stands up to corporate pressure.
However, the question I was left asking myself was: How addictive is nicotine, and: is it the nicotine which harms the body, or is it the smoke of the tobacco leaves ? I used to be a fairly heavy smoker – 30 or 35 cigarettes a day; but gave up on 16 November 2010 and have only smoked about 15 cigarettes since, after finding them lying around the house. I think it's more of a habit than an addiction. The film is too long.