The Informant!

Plot synopsis:
As the film opens, Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) is explaining that nearly everything people eat contains corn and that his company, ADM, is involved in almost all meals. He is overseeing ADM's production of lysine, an additive used in the commercial livestock industry, but there are problems and the company is losing money. Whitacre reveals that ADM is the victim of a saboteur and his source is a Japanese colleague who wants $10 million to name names. As a result, ADM asks the FBI to intervene and tap Whitacre's business line at his home. When the agent Brian Shepard arrives at Whitacre's house to install the recording device, Whitacre is prodded by his wife Ginger to tell the truth. Whitacre reluctantly asks to speak with Brian in the agents car because he believes that ADM has likely bugged the house and reveals to the agent that ADM has been engaged in price fixing with Japanese and Korean lysine producers. Brian informs his superiors that ADM is engaging in rampant corporate crime, but when ADM realizes that the FBI has in fact tapped more than just Whitacre's business line, the company refuses further cooperation with the FBI and orders Whitacre to stop working with Brian.Whitacre initially refuses to cooperate with the FBI and tells Brian that there is no longer any price fixing at the company, but Brian and another agent, Robert Herndon, confront him in a hotel and force him to admit that this isn't the case. Whitacre also admits at this point that he invented the story of the mole and the Japanese extortionist in order to take some heat off himself and his failure to produce results. Whitacre decides to work with the FBI and becomes an informant. Initially, Whitacre explains that he wants to do the right thing but later he admits that he wanted to eliminate the other executives at ADM and take his place as President of the entire company. Whitacre begins to record tapes at work and in meetings he eventually submits over 200 recordings to the FBI which he narrates in an amusing way. He also shows the wire to his maintenance man at home and says that he's Agent 0014 because he's twice as smart as James Bond 007. The FBI eventually records video of ADM's meetings with Japanese and Korean competitors with Whitacre's help. The FBI is happy with the evidence that Whitacre supplies, but the Justice Department takes more convincing, though eventually everyone feels that the case against ADM is strong.As a result of Whitacre's evidence and after two years of work, the FBI launches a massive raid on ADM, seizing files and computers. Whitacre, in an effort to avoid casting suspicion on him as the informant, is confronted by the FBI in a restaurant with fellow executive Terry. The FBI advises Whitacre to tell his company that he is cooperating with the government and to secure his own lawyer as opposed to one the company will offer him. Once the raid is over, Brian learns that Whitacre compromised the raid by warning his secretary and two colleagues but continues with the case. The morning after the raid, Whitacre accepts a company lawyer who spends all day with Whitacre listening to the story of his work as an informant. The company lawyer advises Whitacre to get his own attorney and together they inform several executives that Whitacre will be cooperating with the FBI.After the FBI raid, Whitacre's story begins to unravel and his family is shunned by the corporate community. Whitacre's new counsel is amazed by his story and advises him not to speak to anyone about the case. Somehow, the story is leaked to the Wall Street Journal and Whitacre continues to meet with the FBI agents Brian and Robert. Whitacre confesses to the agents that he has been taking kickbacks for several years the total amount Whitacre embezzles is never made clear in the film because he keeps changing his story, but the final figure he gives is over $11 million. In truth, Whitacre asked a colleague to set up a shell company that sent ADM bogus invoices that the company paid. The film does not clarify exactly how Whitacre's scheme worked; probably because he has never explained the mechanism in detail himself. This revelation results in Whitacre losing his immunity.When confronted with evidence of his embezzlement, Whitacre loses control of himself and it becomes clear that he is suffering from Bipolar Disorder, and his diagnosis will eventually become his defense. It is revealed that the story Whitacre tells of how he was adopted by a wealthy man when he was young is false. Whitacre also fakes a kidnapping attempt in an effort to gain public sympathy and continues to speak to the media despite the advice of his attorneys. He parts ways with the legal counsel when they refuse to file a lawsuit against Brian Shepard for assault and when Whitacre refuses to accept a plea bargain for 3-5 years in prison. Whitacre's new attorney is portrayed as the worst kind of ambulance chaser. He confronts the FBI with evidence that his client was assaulted by Brian, who supposedly hit Whitacre with a suitcase. In order to bolster his case, Whitacre forges a letter from his psychiatrist but no one is fooled. Whitacre is confronted by Brian, who asks him why he keeps lying. Whitacre replies that he doesn't know why and announces that he should go back to the hospital.The film flashes forward to Whitacre's sentencing. Whitacre delivers a meandering statement and admits that he is now on medication. The judge, however, finds no connection between having Bipolar Disorder and committing so many counts of fraud. Whitacre spends nearly 9 years in prison, three times what the executives his tapes help convict served. He petitions, with the help of Agent Robert, for a presidential pardon and admits that he embezzled money in case he lost his job at ADM as a result of working as an informant. It was his severance. It is also suggested that Whitacre embezzled money to compensate for funds he lost when scammed by scammed by a group in Nigeria in an advance fee fraud. The pardon is refused, but Whitacre's evidence was invaluable to one of the largest price-fixing cases in history and the government was able to collect millions in fines. Were it not for the fraud activity, Whitacre would be regarded as a hero. In the final scene, Whitacre is released from prison and is met by Ginger. The viewers are told that Whitacre is currently the COO of Cypress Systems.

Tags: insanity, plot twist, comedy

Review:
With Mark Whitacre as the main character, we follow him into the case and we immediately start to get the impression that this guy really doesn't have his head in the real world – like he doesn't understand the consequences of anything he says and does, which perhaps accounts for his rather cheerful outlook and easy personality.
This is true but the full extent of his actions are unveiled nicely across the whole film – leaving me at times a little like the FBI lawyer during the presentation from ADM's attorney, mouth open not quite believing it.It is not a hilarious movie by any means but the comic air makes it easy to enjoy and the story is engaging and entertaining.
Yet somehow, Steven Soderbergh manages to turn Kurt Eichenwald's book, which depicts the true story of former ADM employee Mark Whitacre in the manner of John Grisham's best legal thrillers, into a thoroughly entertaining, often very funny movie.
This, of course, is aided by Matt Damon's brilliant, spot-on portrayal of the corporate executive-turned-FBI informant, as well as solid work by the supporting cast.When I first read Eichenwald's book after learning about this movie, I was slightly skeptical.
While some of the darker elements have been left out and the film is undoubtedly lighter than its source material, Soderbergh stayed true to reality, keeping the events mostly accurate to what Eichenwald described in his book, and hence, to what really happened; in fact, on a side note, after seeing the movie, the real-life Mark Whitacre commented that the film was "very accurate", which is a bit of a surprise considering Soderbergh made the decision to not consult any of the people involved in the actual 1990s investigation.Oddly enough, while this probably sounds contradictory to the opening statement of my review, much of the humor actually springs out of the events and dialogue depicted in the book, almost all of which took place in reality, rather than jokes or quips written by the screenwriter or improvised by the director or actors.
The supporting cast does a fine job as well and perhaps the most noteworthy of these actors are Scott Bakula as the benignly professional FBI agent Brian Shepard and Melanie Lynskey, who portrays Whitacre's devoted wife, Ginger, with a sort of Mid-western bubbliness.In typical Steven Soderbergh mode, the director adds a quirky, unique tone to the movie.
Everything feels authentic, from the hairstyles to the ADM office and even the colorful array of ties sported by various cast members throughout the movie.Furthermore, by using voice-over narration, Soderbergh effectively manages to enter the mind of Mark Whitacre, who is, to say the least, an extremely fascinating personality.
And I'm not saying that to put movies like Bourne or Oceans down, they are a lot of fun (on different levels), but performance wise he didn't have to stretch that many "muscles" (action wise on the other hand, he obviously had to, at least with the Bourne Trilogy).The story is pretty simple and the anti "Hero" is quite ordinary.
he exposed price-fixing at Archer Daniels Midland, the ag-giant.Matt Damon takes this quasi-caricature and turns him into a comedy act along the lines of Jim Carrey in Liar, Liar.
Power and Greed are all-consuming.While, I don't know the details of the real story, it was interesting to watch Whitacre's interacting/playing with the FBI agents (Scott Bacula and Joel McHale).
STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning The true story of Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) who worked for a giant firm that produced lysine chemicals in products to be consumed by humans.
Whitacre maintained a degree of honesty and integrity to his work, but when he uncovered evidence of price fixing with rival foreign companies, he turned undercover informant for the FBI...but, as events rolled on, it would appear he may have known a bit more about what was going on himself than he was letting on.Playing like a lighter version of 1999's The Insider, Steven Soderbergh's dramatization of corporate corruption in the early 90s is amusingly on edge through-out, with Damon's constant muted voice-overs gently guiding us along this tale of principles and ethics clashing with corporate greed and deception.
Matt Damon gives an excellent performance as the main character, Mark Whitacre, a man who on his own initiative feeds the government information while he continues to embezzle huge sums of money.
The story line has fantastic segways that catch you off guard and make you feel blundered but in complete understanding of the main character.Matt Damon is a great actor and this will probably be his proof for future castings in "not so ordinary" roles.The movie is not as corky as the commercials seem.
a feeling of apathy and love builds for the main character.Reasons to watch = the cynical dialog from Matt Damon pays for the price of your movie ticket itself.
Veteran director Steven Soderbergh who's well known for the Ocean series returns here with a pretty good dark comedy drama that's based on a true story, yet it's realness is overshadowed by humor and comedy.
Veteran and now well rounded actor Matt Damon teams back up with Steven as Damon stars as the central character and somewhat anti-hero Mark Whitacre who as a biochemist for a processing giant ADM(Archer Daniels Midland)exposes the greed and dirty corruption as he blows the whistle on the company's alleged global price fixing methods.Set in Illinois taking place from the early 90's till the story wraps up in 2006, you see that from the get go that Mark Whitacre is well rounded, a married family man hard working successful yet a mind wandering oddball who's intelligent and he has plans to expose the top company brass.
Anyway this even though a spy film Soderbergh blends the drama and suspense with slapstick humor and funny lines all of which feed off of Damon's crazy character.
Still you as the viewer even with the humor and joke intersection are intrigued by observations of searching for the truth.And you as the viewer want answers especially when it involves exposing corporate crime, the truth takes a spin, yet really it wasn't that surprising considering the mind and wandering thoughts of Matt Damon's character.
Overall "The Informant!" is a well done film with a top notch performance from Matt Damon who's now a sharp polished actor, I cheer for the film's telling of the real life tale of corporate fraud and corruption which relates to the times so well with banking, wall street and company scandal.
They are encouraged to continue and launch an investigation of price fixing at the instigation of the lead character, Whitacre (Matt Damon), who agrees to participate in the investigation as an informant.
On the other side I am not a very big fan of Soderbergh - yes I enjoyed some of his movies but I would not rate any of them higher than a 7/10 - and after this evening I would think twice before ever watching another one of his movies.What triggered me to write this review is that I felt the story had potential and this could have been a nice movie.
It stars Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, an executive at ADM, one of the world's largest agricultural conglomerates, and in regards of the film, one of the front runners in corn processing technologies.
Aside from the physical changes Damon went through, you can tell just by the simple lines of dialogue that every word is important and that he is trying to speak through the character and not as an actor.His supporting cast does a fantastic job, especially FBI agents Shepard and Herndon played by Scott Bakula and Joel McHale.
Soderbergh is very good at presenting the right mood for a film.It doesn't hurt to have an amazing soundtrack by Marvin Hamlisch, who has done scores for all different types of films like The Sting, Bananas, Ordinary People, and The Spy Who Loved Me. The score is over the top, but so is the story.
has an exclamation point after the title for a good reason - it suggests that even the writers and actors as well as the usually superb Steven Soderbergh had a tough time figuring out how to make this story into an entertaining while quite implausible movie.
Though based on a true story the movie is basically a running monologue by the hyperkinetic Matt Damon in a role that suits him not at all.
I'm not sure if it's because the story is complicated or if it's because i lost interested very early on.Matt Damon tries his best while playing the strange businessman Mark Whitacre and at times it's quite interesting but the problem is that Director Steven Soderbergh has made a film that does not know if it's a comedy or a serious piece of drama, in the end it turns out to be neither.The Informant could have been so much better if only the director had been on his A game..
I get it that we are seeing things somewhat from the skewed perspective of the pathologically lying protagonist Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) who fancies his megalomaniacal personal greed as rooted in a desire to do the right thing and bring down the price-fixing corporation for which he is the vice president.
Casting in the supporting roles a large roster of individuals known for comic acting rather than dramatic (Patton Oswalt, Dick Smothers, Joel McHale) makes the film feel more smart-ass than hip, as each escalating lie that gets unearthed about Whitacre is greeted with the kind of looks normally reserved for "Dennis the Menace" when caught in a fib.I find guys like Whitacre scary and dangerous.
I don't care how charming Matt Damon is, no one in his right mind is going to want to spend more than 20 minutes in the all-white corporate environs of this film and find his character anything less than a despicable weasel.
I found it absolutely boring and long winded to watch.It doesn't happen a lot, but that was one of the films I had to quit before it was over...almost falling asleep while watching it.I normally think that Matt Damon is a really decent actor and most of his roles, including Jason Bourne and his character in Ocean's 11-13, were appealing and interesting.
It is about Mark Whitacre, the VP of an agribusiness giant, who turns into an informant working with the FBI to expose a price fixing scheme within his firm.The film is a true story but that does not make it more interesting to watch.
Sort of.Which brings us to Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!, where we follow the (mis)adventures of a company whistle blower, who acted in his own self, delusional interest in believing that confessing to the Feds his activity and what he intimately knows about his company's shenanigans in price-fixing, would absolve him of his guilt, and hey, fast track him to the CEO position as well, since he's wearing the white hat and with the good guys.
Here, it seems that Soderbergh had plucked Damon from his Ocean's films, identifying that he can play low-key with aplomb, and does so as the lead protagonist in the film, without whom I believe this movie will fall flat.Damon hides behind that thick moustache and paunch to bring out possibly one of his best roles in recent years highlighting some serious versatility so far unseen, punctuated by a quirky narrative complete with a very 80s feel in art direction.
The story evolves around Mark Whitacre(Matt Damon)who in the early 90's is asked by two FBI agents(played by Scott Bakula and The Soups Joel Mchale) to be an informant for them, when the company Whitacre is working for suspected of price fixing.
But for the next few years while Whitacre is there Informant, more surprising twists start getting revealed.I like the way it was funny, but not a comedy.
The film stars Academy Award Winner Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre, the VP for Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) who uses his knowledge of the price fixing within companies and turned it into one of the biggest scandals of the 90s.
Described as a "quirky comedy-crime film" I was bored throughout following a puffed up Matt Damon in the role of informant for the FBI, who after discovering that his company is involved in price fixing (and convinced he'll be a hero) wears a wire to gather the evidence needed to convict his bosses.
This is based on a true story and the case becomes threatened when it turns out that Mark Whitacre is also a compulsive liar and embezzler.I'm not even sure how to review this, the story was convoluted, random, long winded, and had a Farrelly brothers vibe to it, (but not in a good way) including a distracting (terrible) soundtrack.
He is a chunky monkey, wearing bad clothes and sporting a terrible 80's moustache, who as a character is all over the place; paranoid, angry, accusing, nerdy, comical, intense and a big fat liar.I think my favorite part of this (long) movie was the ongoing voice-over where we get to hear the random internal dialogue going through Mark's head, and wow does he have some obscure thoughts, often hilarious.1/26/15.
Based on a true story, Steven Soderbergh's 'black comedy' follows whistleblower and closet psychopath Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon).
But it works -- brilliantly.Matt Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, a senior executive at Archers Daniels Midland (ADM), who becomes an FBI informant in connection with investigations into ADM's business practices in the early to mid-1990's.
The thing to really notice in The Informant!, after also taking in Matt Damon's mind-boggling good performance and Steven Soderbergh's creative cinematography and compositions, is the narration.
I loved just looking at the film as a piece of masterful direction.But for all of Soderbergh's tricks, and the brilliance of the narration, and the comedy that comes out of reaction takes of the supporting players (i.e. Joel McHale and Scott Bakula as the FBI agents), it's Damon's show.
The only other people on the screen are some understandably confused and bewildered FBI agents who get taken for a long ride by Matt Damon as Mark Whitacre...the audience too gets suckered in by our main man.Whitacre is an unlikely hero and Soderbergh counts on the audience not knowing what's ahead as a tale of price-fixing unfolds.
Fast paced, interesting story; this is what most movies should include.The Informant!, however, had neither of these two.This movie, starring a fat Matt Damon, who looked like he would win a Ned Flanders lookalike competition, is about a man who basically "tells on" his company, regarding some price fixing on their behalf.The movie sets itself out to be a fight between an ordinary man and, what I was hoping to be some evil Japanese corporation with ninjas sent out to kill Matt Damon, but no, this did not happen.Honestly, the only exciting part about this movie, was the fact that I got the chance to say "Matt Damon" like a loony over and over again.This movie was more boring than watching grass grow.
More than comedy I felt like the Mark Whitaker was stupid.Only positive about this movie for me was acting of Matt Damon..
Director Steven Soderberg delivers a one-of-a-kind gem with "The Informant!", a movie about bipolar conflicts which, itself, is a bipolar conflict.The main character, Mark Whitacre (played by Matt Damon), is presented as a swiftly-shifting bundle of complexities.
Everything about "The Informant!" leads one to expect a comedy, from the exclamation point in the title to the idea of hunky action star Matt Damon playing an overweight corporate dweeb (complete with pedo moustache).
A dressed-down Matt Damon is "The Informant" in this 2009 film directed by Steven Soderbergh, from a book by Kurt Eichenwald.
This film is purportedly based on a true story that must have been a pip.Damon plays Whitacre, who goes to the Feds accusing the company he works for, ADM, as being partners in price-fixing with their competitors.
Good points: 1) Matt Damon is truly believable and his performance is noteworthy; 2) Movie keeps you guessing, is unpredictable, and is thoroughly engaging; 3) Good script, with interesting and memorable narration; 4) A smart, though not brilliant; 5) Look and style of the film was effective;Not-so-good points 1) Odd casting- there was a decision to cast many comedians, including the Smothers Brothers and several stand-ups, in serious roles (mostly attorneys and associates), to the point that it became distracting.
The story is about a guy named Mark Whitacre(Matt Damon) who works for a company in the 1990's and tries to get the FBI to take down people that are in higher positions than he is by making false accusations, so basically he thinks by taking down the head figures he would be the person to replace that position.
After the first half hour, you start checking the time every 10-15 minutes until the end of the movie.I don't want to write a long review but I just want to mention a few things.First, the story line is not that interesting.
Not the other way around...Finally, I just want to mention that Matt Damon delivered a good performance in this movie.
Without them the story would have been a bit boring.You do not feel sorry for Mark Whitacre when you see him do prison time and in fact more than any of the people involved in the price fixing scam.
I don't think I've ever seen Matt Damon play such a quirky, dark character, like that of Mark Whitacre.
To the pantheon of movies about corporate greed we can now add Steven Soderbergh's comedy "The Informant!".
Steven Soderbergh is always trying new things, so his movies are always, on some level, quite interesting.The Informant follows an executive who helps the FBI to investigate shenanigans at his company.
Steven Soderbergh crafts a great movie using this snowballing insanity and Matt Damon's acting skills.
"I'm the good guy in all this." Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon)He's not.