Two stools.

Rating: 6/10 (1 February 2000)

A magnificent, sublimely restrained performance from Russell Crowe as the unfortunate but heroic insider of the title and excellent, moody atmosphere à la 'All the President's Men' do not quite dispel a sense of a big chance lost here: the chance to have a modern classic on our hands. So what is missing? Well, we should rather ask what is there too much of? And the answer, in my opinion, is perspectives. The writer and director have taken a true story (the cover up by powerful tobacco interests of health risk from smoking) and looked at it from the p.o.v. of both the snitch (Crowe) and the investigative journalist (Pacino) who fights editorial corruption to follow up the story, and more or less equal weight is given to each. I would suggest that by far the more interesting of the two stories is that of the snitch, the common man whose conscience is so heavy (and bitterness so strong) that he even sacrifices his beloved family to get the truth out. As it is, the stories of the two men kind of trip each other up; perhaps there was even material here for two films. Whatever, it's certainly an immensely absorbing and at times very moving account of common (and not so common) people caught up in a shameful moment in American corporate history.