-By Doris Toumarkine

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Filmmaker Charles Evans, Jr.’s involving exposé of the tobacco industry’s designs in the 1980s to develop a less deadly kind of nicotine and the battles to bring the cigarette giants to their knees is eye-opening. Addiction Incorporated is a visual eyeful of beautifully captured and eloquent talking heads, helpful and fun animation clearly presenting the workings of nicotine, old movie clips, ads, archival footage (including the Congressional hearings on the tobacco industry in the ’90s via C-Span), etc., all so informative.

But Addiction Incorporated is also richly entertaining in a traditional narrative sense. It unfolds as a detective story as Victor J. DeNoble, from a working-class Queens, New York background but with a PhD in science, takes a research job in the early ’80s with Philip Morris to investigate the addictive qualities of nicotine and find out if there might be a nicer way to hook smokers.

DeNoble was too good at what he did. He inadvertently created indisputable evidence that nicotine was addictive, something the tobacco companies had long denied, and found a less lethal addictive substance. So he was fired, his lab closed, and his findings suggesting a “safer cigarette” were buried and kept from the public.

When Philip Morris suppressed his paper, DeNoble and some lab colleagues eventually became the most prominent in a historic whistle-blowing wave that not only exposed the dangers of smoking but the nefarious efforts of the cigarette giants, who were aware of their addictive products, to keep profits coming and the public smoking.

The doc also does a nice job integrating a number of journalists from outlets like The Los Angeles Times and ABC who were investigating tobacco and aware that the industry knew it was trafficking in addictive products.

Onscreen as the chief talking head and bearer of the narrative throughline, DeNoble, a decent, dedicated and eloquent scientist, is a perfect leading man. (He now lectures to students on the evils of drug addiction.) Good looks and an affable manner onscreen, even in documentaries, never hurt anybody.

DeNoble was bound by a confidentiality agreement with Philip Morris to keep his findings quiet, but during the subsequent Congressional hearings and with a top Philip Morris executive on the spot (C-Span cameras were rolling), the exec released DeNoble from the agreement, thus allowing him to tell all.

The tobacco CEOs are seen most egregiously in the Congressional hearings lying under oath that they believed cigarettes weren’t addictive. At the barricades for Philip Morris was Steven C. Parrish, the giant’s senior VP and general counsel for external affairs and an embodiment of lawyerly arrogance until the smoke hits the fan. Philip Morris had the nerve to sue ABC for $10 billion for threatening an anti-tobacco report. Like CBS in the Brown & Williamson case, the network caved.

For added displeasure, the doc also presents legislators like Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R-VA) who were easy lobbyist bait. He dared to liken the committee’s treatment of the tobacco industry during the hearings to McCarthyism.

But thanks to DeNoble and others, Big Tobacco and its M.O. were exposed and mammoth lawsuits followed that brought their own dramas, including the country’s largest class-action suit. The historic legal actions that followed also introduce a bunch of colorful New Orleans lawyers who take on the anti-tobacco cause. Detailing the fascinating battle between the lawyers on both sides, Addiction Incorporated takes on the qualities of a legal thriller.

Oddly, the doc barely makes a reference to cancer (nicotine’s direct connection is to heart problems) or to the most famous tobacco industry whistleblower of all, Brown & Williamson spoiler Jeffrey Wigand, depicted in the hit film The Insider.