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The Insider

Date: Apr 27 2000

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Plot: Tobacco companies have been hiding a secret for a long time. Cigarettes have been proven to cause cancer, and the companies know it. Jeff (Russel Crowe) works for one of the major tobacco companies and gets fired from his job. The company treats him badly, so Jeff decides to tell the world about the secrets it holds.
Clip: In this scene, Jeff has just been harassed by the company he used to work for. He calls Lowell (Al Pacino) who is a news show producer and tells him that he’s ready to share the secrets he knows on TV.

Dialog

1. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Lowell

Jeff

Lowell: Jeff, call the FBI. Right away.

Jeff: They do this with impunity. *

Lowell: Jeff…

Jeff: They get to go home at night. What does it cost these people to do this to us. Nothing! My girls are crying, so fuck them, I want to…

Lowell: I heard you. I gotta arrange for legal defense first, I’ve got to get you to testify in court, get it on public record.

Jeff: Then hold it off the air until you’ve got that, but I want to go to New York. And I want to go on record, right now.

Lowell: Good. But Jeff…

Jeff: Call them, Lowell.*

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Discussion

This conversation has some good legal vocabulary. Both men are middle-aged, which is why there isn’t a lot of slang common to young people. But the language is very good to know, since many American movies use a similar style. Personally, I really liked the movie. I think smoking is unhealthy, and companies try to hide this from people who buy cigarettes. The movie has a lot of information about the industry. I recommend seeing it if you like movies that question powerful groups. From the front row, John

Comments

bharat.rai@hotmail.com

Nepal

i think everybody knows that cigarrattes is harmfull, it effect direckly to the lungs, allthough it edbatising openly aroumd the world, it is foolisness – compliene and to report agains it, noneed to reopen it's secracy. in this lesson Jeff was a full timer employee during his job time, and he was a commited worker but after dismis from this place startting to againsit , it is a humanbeing?