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Go watch The Insider Today!

This post was written by Josh

If you didn't get a chance to see The Insider back in 1999 when it came out, rent it today. The film has a stellar cast, including Al Pacino, Russell Crowe, and Chistopher Plummer, and it does an excellent job of depicting the personal sacrifices whistleblowers make when they stand up to corporations engaged in wrongdoing.

Russell Crowe plays Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, a biochemist, whose whistleblowing activities eventually led to the historic $368 billion settlement between the tobacco industry and the attorneys general of 40 states on June 20, 1997. Wigand served as Vice President of Research and Development for Brown and Williamson Tobacco Corporation from December 1988 to March 1993. During his time at Brown and Williamson, Wigand learned that the company enhanced the effect of nicotine in its products through the use of chemical additives. It also became clear to Dr. Wigand that the tobacco industry was deliberately misrepresenting tobacco as a non-addictive substance.

Brown and Williamson eventually fired Dr. Wigand, and it gave him a severance package and made him sign a non-disclosure agreement in the hope that he would keep quiet. However, in 1995, Dr. Wigand went public with his damning information about Brown and Williamson and the tobacco industry.

Dr. Wigand gave a deposition in 1995 for a lawsuit brought by the State of Mississippi against the tobacco industry for health care cost reimbursement. (Mississippi was the first in a long line of states to become involved in tobacco litigation). Later, in early 1996, Dr. Wigand was interviewed on 60 Minutes for what would become an enormously controversial segment. The interview did not air until 1999 due to various delays. CBS refused to broadcast it for several months because the network was concerned that Brown and Williamson would sue it for tortious interference. The network was afraid that Brown and Williamson would claim that CBS had caused Wigand to break his confidentiality agreement with his former employer by doing the interview.

The Insider does an excellent job of exploring the fallout from Wigand's revelations and its effect on his personal life. Wigand began to fear for his family's safety--justifiably--after receiving death threats. In one particularly chilling instance, someone left a bullet in Wigand's mailbox. This incident is depicted in the film with Crowe/Wigand opening his mailbox and bending down to look inside. A camera at the opposite end of the mailbox shows a bullet standing on its flat end directly on top of the mail, almost in silhouette against Wigand's face.  The threats eventually required Wigand to be guarded at all times by two ex-secret service agents.

Unfortunately, the stress surrounding Wigand's public disclosures ended his marriage. Wigand also experienced a big change in socioeconomic status after he was forced out of his lucrative tobacco excutive position and became a high school teacher. To add insult to injury, Brown and Williamson mounted a disgraceful smear campaign, complete with a 500-page dossier intended to portray Wigand as a liar. The dossier was given to The Wall Street Journal, which, after an investigation, found that many of the claims made against Wigand were "backed by scant or contradictory evidence" or "demonstrably untrue."

After you've watched the film, visit Dr. Wigand's website to see what this famous whistleblower is up to now.