The Insider

(dir. Michael Mann) (1999)

Cancer man and chemist Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) is shown the door but his erstwhile Big Tobacco employer strikes again when he breaches the confidentiality agreement. 60 Minutes producer and crypto-saint Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) is busy inducing that in aid of the effort to expose what everyone already knows: smoking is bad for you.

Compelling and clever; rich performances, particularly by Crowe and Christopher Plummer as the 60 Minutes host, Mike Wallace (both characters the most compelling throughout by far, because they face genuine, human, crises of conscience).