Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe, L.A. Confidential) is an unlikely hero. He's an overweight, middle-aged man who drinks too much, loses his temper, keeps his wife in the dark during a crisis and betrays his principles to work for Big Tobacco. Yet he risks his career, marriage, financial security, and even his life to expose what 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino, The Devil's Advocate) calls the "biggest public health reform issue" in U.S. history. His disclosures spurred lawsuits that cost tobacco companies hundreds of billions of dollars.

Wigand claims his ex-employer Brown & Williamson knew its cigarettes contained carcinogenic chemicals that enhance the action of nicotine. The story's so explosive that the CBS television network refuses to run Wigand's 60 Minutes interview when the suits realize a Brown & Williamson lawsuit would jeopardize a pending corporate merger. Still, Bergman keeps fighting for his source, defending Wigand's reputation inside and outside the company.

Bergman, of course, is the other hero, as the dogged journalist in this elegantly told story of powerful business interests and the media. He's remarkably restrained, getting close to Wigand and making the case for talking to Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer) on the air, but letting Wigand make the decision himself. The filmmakers show similar restraint while giving us an engrossing picture of the relationship between two complex men. Even when Wigand has lost it all, and sinks weakly into a chair, we're spared the gratuitous breaking-down scene. The camera lets him do that in private.

Director Michael Mann ("Heat", "Last of the Mohicans") uses jerky camerawork and shots of partial faces or figures to help create an intense atmosphere of suspense and danger. The high stakes of the game are highlighted by scenes like an opening sequence of a blindfolded Bergman being driven to a meeting with the Islamic fundamentalist leader of Hezbollah.

We're treated to terrific performances, notably by Pacino, who could talk anyone into anything, and Crowe, whose growing paranoia is entirely believable when the Big Tobacco heavies come after him. The story's accuracy may be dubious - it's been challenged by Brown & Williamson and Wallace - but the insider's view is unmatched.