Product: The Insider [VHS] (1999)
Rating: 5.0
Fabulous work...
This was one of the year's best films. The cinematography is awesome, and the acting was fantastic. Al Pacino played a devoted journalist who stumbles onto perhaps the century's biggest and most costliest scandals (with regard to human life.) Russell Crowe (Jeffrey Wigand) is a downtrodden businessman/scientist who's life seemingly spins out of control when he is fired from Brown & Williamson.To regain his integrity and make some sense out of his life he decides to tell the truth about what the tobacco companies really knew about their deadly and addictive product. From there his life becomes a hellish torture of slander and subliminal messages (bullet in the mailbox.) Somehow Wigand manages to keep his sanity and he brings down big tobacco by revealing all in a courtroom.This film was perhaps Crowe's best work. After seeing Gladiator (Crowe was great in that too) I was impressed to witness Crowe's character range. He went from a aging businessman/scientist to a war scarred Roman army general. Wow, very good work I must say.Watch this film and see a defining point in American history.