Is a person morally responsible for the products that are made by his or her employer? Can the mass media, owned by huge corporations, be trusted to do difficult investigations? These are modern moral questions raised by this movie. It is based on the true story about an investigation of a tobacco company by the TV show 60 Minutes, as told by a producer for that show, Lowell Bergman (played by Al Pacino).

Bergman meets Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a former vice president for reseach for Brown & Williamson, the third largest cigarette company. Wigand offers to give Bergman incriminating evidence about reseach that has been done by tobacco companies. The reseach tried to boost the addictive effect of nicotine on smokers. This information belied the testimony to Congress by seven CEO's of tobacco companies, who swore that nicotine wasn't addictive.

Unfortunately, Wigand had signed a confidentiality agreement with Brown & Williamson, so he couldn't legally reveal his information. Even so, he felt responsible to make the information public, because of his role in performing the research. When he tesified at a Mississippi trial against a tobacco company, Brown & Williamson brought down the full force of the legal system to stop him, including a smear campaign to discredit him. As a Mississippi lawyer described this type of campaign to Wigand, "you are assaulted psychologically and financially, which is it's own special violence because it's directed against your kids.... You feel your whole family's future is compromised."

Meanwhile, Bergman faced almost as much resistance from CBS against showing Wigand's interview. He wanted to ignore the confidentiality agreement, because "this is a news organization. People are always telling us things they shouldn't." However, the CBS lawyer (played by Gina Gershon) was afraid of a lawsuit. To her, "the greater the truth, the greater the damage."  In other words, the more important the story was, the more CBS could be sued for if they presented it.

This prospect turns the first amendment on its head. Instead of being liable for falsehoods or slander, a journalist can be sued in civil court for telling the truth. Bergman responded, "Since when has the paragon of investigative journalism allowed lawyers to determine the news content on 60 Minutes."

Wigand wanted to expose the big tobacco companies as being deceptive and fraudulent. He is certainly a hero for facing down a huge corporation, at a cost of his reputation, his profession, and his marriage. But this story became more than that. It became a case study of the conflict between integrity of individuals against corporations that are more concerned with self preservation than with their customers.  

Even more, it is a story of the self-censorship in a large media company to avoid legal threats. People who study the media often wonder whether reporters do not pursue stories because the stories are too complicated, too difficult, unprofitable, or because their corporate bosses won't like them. If democracy depends on the oversight by a free press, how can we be sure that the press will do its job? Who watches the watchers?

This movie is available on video, and it is rated R for language.