Poor one-sided melodrama - much heat, little light

Rating: 1/10 (4 February 2002)

Caution: Contains spoilers
I disliked this movie. Generally, I found it boring - and yet somehow also confusing (e.g., the absence of any warning, for example, when Pacino would suddenly be reviewing tape or showing up somewhere - and you are trying hard to understand how this fits into the Wigand story - and it doesn't - it's another story Pacino's working on altogether!).
One of the primary problems with the movie is that it is the gospel according to one tendentious self-righteous character - one who cares nothing at all for confidentiality provisions. I suppose this is a journalistic flaw generaly - to feel that some agreements are critical (e.g., an agreement with a source) and others are entirely worthles (e.g., a confidentiality provision in an agreement with a government or in this case, corporate employee). Why this should be so is unexplained.
Thus we hear Pacino's character rant about sources distrusting him in the future because the source's story was excised from a broadcast - we don't hear a word from Crowe's character about whether any employer will ever again trust him after he's agreed to take unearned compensation and free health insurance in a severance agreement in exchange for his confidentiality - and proceeds to betray the corporation's trust.
So, for what critical news does the movie see the confidentiality provision as valueless? That cigarettes are referred to at one of the tobacco companies as a "nicotine delivery system" and that the company continued to use an ammonia-based additive that more quickly delivers the rush to the nervous system and bloodstream (for which people buy cigarettes) even while Crowe's character was working on a replacement. That's it! From this, Crowe's character grandly gives HIS view of Brown & Williamson's CEO's mental state as deceitful when that man testified that cigarettes were not addictive because nicotine was not a drug. Wow! This is news? YOu mean, they WEREN'T telling the truth? You mean cigarettes AREN'T EASY to stop smoking? I clearly recall the day after the CEOs gave that testimony before Congress that it produced nationwide ridicule - editorials in all the major newspapers, sarcastic commentary by magazines. The nation freely mocked the obvious lies.
And for THIS, CBS must induce Crowe's character to violate his freely-agreed upon confidentiality provision - a provision for which he was handsomely paid (he says) and that took care of all the health needs of his children? I truly don't get it!
Moreover, the movie is confusing in failing to properly emphasize the plot points. They only glancingly mention that the original broadcast is aired AFTER Wigand's testimony before a Mississippi trial is spread in newspapers around the country. The movie had already told us that his deposition testimnony in that case was "under seal". So what happened? This is the movie's turning point- now it is no longer confidential - so CBS is free to broadcast Wigand's story - there is no danger any more of a judgment (properly) entered against CBS. How was the order committing the testimony under seal changed? Did the judge reverse himself? Did an appellate court overturn it? We never know.
Instead, the movie emphasizes the telling of the inside story of the excision of Wigand's testimony to the NY Times - why would that change any of the minds of the CBS corporate heads or counsel? They didnt' seem to care that Wallace led off the original broadcast with his disagreement with CBS' decision - so why would they care now? The movie doesn't make it clear.
What HAS changed is the viability of a suit against CBS - originally it was likely - now the information is no longer confidential so CBS is free to run Wigand's interview. Yet the movie somehow treats this as incidental - BECAUSE the movie doesn't take seriously the threat of suit, the likelihood of judgment and dismisses the entire notion of confidentiality agreements (at one point referring to suits for tortious interference with such agreements as "something that sounds like bad radio reception").

Ludicrously, the movie (in a very conspiratorial tone) tries to make something of the fact that CBS executives would fail to gain from a pending merger of CBS and Westinghouse due to such a lawsuit - AHA! That's why they're squelching the story. The move fails to follow through on its reasoning. Why would they fail to gain? Becuase of the perception that such a suit would be successful - as successful as the Mississippi lawyers' suits against tobacco! And both for good reason - because contracts are respected by law - not only in the U.S. but in every country on earth. The movie doesn't care.
The worst scene is during the deposition of Crowe in the Mississippi case - when a tobacco lawyer properly objects to testimony that appears to invade the confidentiality of his client's commercial information - and in fact to induce breach of a specific agreement by the witness (Crowe) - against whom a court in Kentucky has already weighed the likelihood of success in a suit and issued a restraining order against Crowe's testimony. In response, the anti-tobacco lawyer hysterically screams at the anti-tobacco lawyer that they are in Mississippi rather than Kentucky - and then absurdly yells he should "take that smirk off his face". The movie then shows the little villain cowed - the smirk disappears. Snidely Whiplash is defeated.

This is a truly poor movie. It's a movie that fails to have a single person defend such agreements in general or in this particular - instead it creates strawmen who give personal reasons for not running the story ("I'm too old to buck the system" or "I unhesitatingly obey authority and this is what they say" or "I am nothing without CBS"). How about "this is not very newsworthy and we may be doing something very wrong, because I respect such freely negotiated agreements?" NOpe.
The movie is agit-prop - often illogical. I was truly disappointed - I expected a LOT better.