The idea that smoking is harmful to us is so engrained in the public mind today that it's almost impossible to imagine a time when it wasn't common knowledge. That the tobacco industry knew about the adverse health effects of their product and actively hid this information from the public shouldn't be surprising at all - at least, not to anyone remotely familiar with the insidious nature of corporations. Michael Mann's The Insider explores the murky, shady world of corporate conspiracies through the real experiences of Jeffrey Wigand, an industry whistleblower who had worked as a research scientist for Brown and Williamson, and sets out to expose them for lying about their understanding of the harmful effects of cigarettes. While the concept might not sound like riveting movie material, in the hands of Mann and with two excellent performances from Russell Crowe and Al Pacino, The Insider emerges as a compelling and suspenseful experience. Whether or not the revelations are quite so shocking today as they were when the movie was released is another matter, and it probably isn't going to convince many people to quit smoking, but nevertheless it's a solid thriller which proves that in the right hands the most seemingly mundane subject can make for a great film.
