Just watched The Insider with SueOn, Antegra, and DNG. IMDB users gave it a 7.9. You can view the trailer here. The movie was pretty interesting and dramatic, but was 2 hours and 40 minutes long. You can get the DVD from Amazon.com for only $10.99.
Jeffrey Wigand, Russell Crowe, Al Pacino, Lowell Bergman
Spoilers:
The movie deals with a fired corporate vice president of a tobacco company. The story is actually based on true events, though they did say parts of the movie was exaggerated. Russell Crowe plays the part of Jeffrey Wigand, the fired executive and Al Pacino plays the part of Lowell Bergman, the producer of the show 60 minutes on CBS. Bergman got in contact with Wigand and finds out he was recently fired and was forced to sign a NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). However, Wigand just bought a new house and new car, and his daughter had asthma. The company gave Wigand and nice severance payment and medical support to keep his mouth shut. They even later threatened him that if he said anything, his family and him would both be in danger.
At this time, the tobacco company was a very powerful force you don’t want to deal with. Bergman continues to provoke Wigand to tell his story and promises that his story would be heard. However after Wigand gave up everything, losing his family because the wife could no longer stand the pressure and threats, having the state of Kentucky serve him to keep his mouth shut or else go to jail, in the end, he stepped out and talked. He did a whole piece on 60 minutes which was going to air the following weekend. However, corporate America gets involved. CBS got scared that the tobacco company would sue them and told them to not air the interview. Bergman fought to his end about how if 60 minutes was news or a corporate tool. He had promised Wigand that his story would be heard.
On the other side, the tobacco company was scooping up dirt about Wigand and sending it to Wall Street Journal, making him look like a liar. When WSJ was about to release an article about the validity of Wigand’s testimony, Bergman got in contact with a friend in WSJ and provided proof that all the information they received has only the surface and provided a more indepth research. In turn, the WSJ released an article about how the tobacco industry was doing a smear campaign on Wigand.
Later, the original interview was aired, but Bergman resigned stating that he couldn’t stand the fact he was forced into the corner like that. He could no longer have confidence in promising the sources he finds that their story would be told.
It was quite a touching story.
From Wikipedia:
In 1995, former Brown & Williamson (B&W) Vice President for Research & Development Jeffrey Wigand provided information to 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman that B&W had systematically hidden the health risks of their cigarettes. Furthermore, it was alleged that B&W had introduced foreign agents (fiberglass, ammonia, etc.) with the intent of enhancing the effect of nicotine. Bergman began to produce a piece based upon the information, but ran into opposition from Don Hewitt. Because of the hesitation from Hewitt, The Wall Street Journal instead broke Wigand’s story. The 60 Minutes piece was eventually aired with substantially altered content, and was missing some of the most damning evidence against B&W. The exposé of the incident was published in an article in Vanity Fair by Marie Brenner, entitled The Man Who Knew Too Much. The New York Times wrote that 60 Minutes and CBS had “betrayed the legacy of Edward R. Murrow.” The incident was turned into a seven-times Oscar-nominated feature film entitled The Insider, directed by Michael Mann and starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino.
Other stuff from that same Wikipedia link above that I found interesting:
In 1986, Don Hewitt greenlit a story concerning the Audi 5000 automobile, a popular German luxury car. The story concerned a number of incidents where the car purportedly accelerated without warning while parked, injuring or killing people. 60 Minutes was unable to duplicate this behavior, and so hired an outside consultant to modify the transmission to behave in this manner, and aired a story about it. The incident devastated Audi sales in the United States, which did not reach the same level for another fifteen years. The initial incidents which prompted the report were found by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Transport Canada to have been attributable to operator error, where car owners had depressed the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal. CBS issued a partial retraction, without acknowledging the test results of involved government agencies. A rival to 60 Minutes, Dateline NBC, would be found guilty of similar tactics years later regarding fuel tank integrity on General Motors pickup trucks.
