The good, the bad, and the ugly

Rating: Null/10 (5 November 1999)

Warning: Possible spoilers ahead
The Insider: After being fired as the chief researcher for a major tobacco company, Jeffrey Wigand is forced to sign a confidentiality agreement. In a twist of fate he comes in contact with Lowel Bergman - a producer with 60 Minutes - who asks for his help decipher some documents. Circumstances and a moral barometer convince Wigand that he must divulge his secrets. Only after baring his soul does Wigand truly learn how much he really has to lose.
At two hours and forty minutes this is a long movie with some notable lulls (are there enough cell phone conversations going on?) that should have been left on the cutting room floor. In addition, Michael Gambon was particularly ineffective as the villain in the piece - he is annoying and distracting rather than menacing. So much for the bad.

Wonderful cinematography and a good script are outdone only by the performances.: Crowe does a remarkable job as Wigand (he gained almost 40 pounds for the role) alternating between paranoia and rapture and you realize that he never understood the scope of his decision. Pacino hums with intensity as the man-of -his-word that coaxes the story out of Wigand, only to watch his promises destroyed. Finally, Christopher Plummer's take on Mike Wallace as a paragon of journalistic integrity who caves to his corporate masters is anything but flattering, (hence Wallace's attempts to stop this film from being made). It doesn't get much better than this.
The showpiece of the film is the depth of the conspiracy and total arrogance displayed by the tobacco companies. As Wallace notes, Wigand's information doesn't merely say that "cigarettes are bad for you": he paints them as dealers designing and pushing the ultimate in addictive drugs, and god help anyone that gets in their way. We are talking the ugliest of the ugly.
If you're a smoker who is tired of warnings on cigarette packages maybe this will give you pause the next time you light up. If you don't smoke, it will give you one more reason not to start.