"We're in the nicotine delivery business."

Rating: 8/10 (16 April 2018)

When Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) made the statement above in a sworn deposition, it changed the tenor of the story for me. Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes is bad for you, but when the damage caused by smoking is exacerbated by chemically treated additives designed to affect the brain and central nervous system so that users become addicted, well that adds a whole new dynamic to this story of corporate complicity to prevent the truth from reaching the American public. I wasn't following this news event all that closely when it broke, but one didn't have to because most of the glaring headlines told the story. I do remember the bit about the 'nicotine delivery business' and it had the effect of sending chills up your spine when associated with the 'ammonia chemistry' Wigand also spoke about.
For me, this film played out almost like an espionage thriller. You had the upper levels of corporate and media hierarchy entangled in a sophisticated legal dance designed to keep the truth from coming out. One has to credit the real Dr. Wigand for the courage and fortitude required to withstand the daily onslaught against his character and integrity. Russell Crowe turns in a skillfully conflicted performance of a family man on the brink of having his entire world collapse while trying to do the right thing. Al Pacino may be better known for other roles but he was never finer than he was here as firebrand CBS producer Lowell Bergman, carrying his loyalty and integrity right to the very edge with his company and on-air personality Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer).
The only part of the script I didn't agree with was when Crowe's character is described by Bergman as being an ordinary person under extraordinary pressure for telling the truth. No matter how you slice it, Wigand was no ordinary person to put up with a divorce, the breakup of his family, and personal character assassination in order to out the tobacco companies. It takes a certain kind of individual in the face of overwhelming opposition to become, in a paraphrase of an earlier comment, a truth delivery system.