The Insider

(Buena Vista)

In this Michael Mann film based on a true story, Brown & Williamson vice-president Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) finds himself without a job when he balks at measures that would augment the addictiveness of cigarettes. Maverick 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) seeks him out, and eventually Wigand tells all he knows to Mike Wallace (a devastatingly accurate portrayal by Christopher Plummer) on tape, initiating a Kafkaesque slide that ends with his life in shambles, the reputation of CBS tarnished, and Big Tobacco coughing up $246 billion to 50 states in lawsuits.