Telling the truth is dangerous and very unprofitable. This time the film is based on real events. True, for artistic needs, some moments were changed, something was added, and something was removed, but the contours of history correspond to history. In English there is a special word “a whistleblower”. A person who reveals classified information that is illegal or dangerous to conceal. That smoking provokes various dangerous diseases, by the 90s everyone knew. Everyone except the tobacco companies. Their representatives claimed that they were not aware of any harm and therefore no regulation of tobacco was necessary. Jeffrey Wiegand took it and publicly stated that the tobacco companies knew about the harms but hid what they knew. The effects were tectonic. Courts have requested internal documents from tobacco companies that reveal that things are much worse - tobacco companies have known about the harms of their products for a long time and have been running sophisticated denial-of-harm information campaigns for decades. Tobacco companies have admitted harm to the products, pleaded guilty to lying, agreed to pay multibillion-dollar compensation and faced numerous lawsuits. Tobacco products were severely restricted by the state.
Jeffrey Wiegand is a little-known man who has done a great deal for humanity. At the center of the film is the question of what is society's reward for a man like Wiegand? He refused a very good job, a secure life and old age, put his life in danger, he faced a ruinous trial and a real sentence, he became the object of slander ... and all for what. The reward was the opportunity to tell the truth. What else? Well, that's all. However, he did what he did and succeeded. American truth-cutters have a reliable tool – the press. When something needs to be published, the information is leaked to the press. Wiegand went that way too. But the situation was so serious that even the press panicked. In fact, she eventually saved Wigand. And the film is based on a biographical article in the Vanity Fair.
The movie is well staged. But the boring legal procedures were diluted with dramatic moments to make it more stressful. Worth watching.