Stunning direction and breathtaking performances makes this one of the 90's all-time high.

Rating: 10/10 (25 January 2008)

This is a excellent movie that tells the story of Jeffrey Wigand (Crowe), a well-educated chemist, who decides to break his confidentiality agreement with his former tobacco company Brown & Williamson as he goes on camera doing a revealing "60 Minutes" interview about how cigarettes are harmful and highly addictive. With troubled Wigand leaning hard on producer Lowell Bergman (Pacino), they risk arrest for contempt of court. Now the two of them has to struggle hard against Big Tobacco's attempt to silence them and CBS' network cowardly pulling out, wanting to avoid a lawsuit.
The story is brilliantly told through the different aspects of place & time, Crowe's Wigand does a sterling performance as the stolid character he portrays goes through a struggling marriage whilst he's attacked by B&W and feels manipulated by Bergman. Al Pacino is the movie's powerhouse as the former 60ties radical who's operating together with star correspondent Mike Wallace, played by a priceless Christopher Plummer. Pacino's in prime-form from the opening scene in which his appearance finds him sitting hooded in the back of a car, cruising in the crowded streets of any Iranian city to the final finish in which he leaves the 60-Minutes behind, stepping out of his lifelong workplace.
And it's that fore-mentioned opening scene that's one of the movie's most fascinating moments; Bergman deals out an exclusive interview with a sheik, later Wallace steps in to do the actual interview when he's strictly order to move away from the sheik. Wallace gets up from his chair, and out-manages the armed soldier with "Do you think I'm an 78-year old assassin who's gonna kill him with my notes?", there's tension in the room as Bergman steps in and asks his companion Wallace if he's "through fu**ing around?". And when the interview starts Wallace asks "Do you know that everyone in America thinks you're a terrorist?" - it's a killer scene and stays with you through the whole movie. It's showcasing of great television, it's a startling interview by the very first question, and 60-Minutes becomes a great show because it tells the truth- but with Wigand and Bergman's case about tobacco, 60-Minutes and CBS executives won't air the original interview, they're gonna need a sanitized, alternate version of it. Now Bergman rages at Wallace for going along with 60-Minutes head-chief Hewitt, and there-by Wigand rages at Bergman for feeling left out and manipulated, he didn't count on pressures that would break his marriage and death threats. And Wigand is a isolated hero who's kept quiet about for years about Big Tobacco, how he acts like a ticking bomb as his frustration and anger boils over as the purring B&W boss threats him if he doesn't agree on a further and tougher confidentiality pact.
This is 2 hours and 30-something minutes of talking, about how truth gets compromised in the America. As Bergman says; he gets the interview, he makes him break his confidentiality pact, he tells the truth, he shoots it but are they gonna air it? No. Wallace backs at at the age of 78, wanting to be remembered for that the last thing he did wasn't to tear down CBS to pieces, loosing his job and respect. Bergman on the other hand is as Hewitt calls him an anarchist; standing at the beach talking with Wigand on the phone he realizes that the system's not there to back him up anymore, he's taken this case too far for anybody in CBS to back him up, he's on his own - and when his wife says "You won", he can't feel reluctant to ask what did he win. CBS finally agrees to air the original interview, as Wallace walks over to him and asks about their next project together - Bergman looks at him and says "What got broken here doesn't go back together again". This is Micheal Mann at his best, a provoking drama that's one of the best movies the 90ties ever made.