Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! Film Review

Matt Damon Stars As a Bipolar Company Executive Turned Whistleblower

Sep 17, 2009

An entertaining dark comedy about a nice, young man, so likeable, that the FBI failed to uncover the fraud he himself committed against the company he put under scrutiny.

Matt Damon delivers an Oscar-worthy performance in the character-driven The Informant!. Damon is fascinating to watch in his portrayal of the charismatic business executive, Mark Whitarce, who became a government informer for the FBI. The scripted bizarre inner monologues in Damon’s head are the comedic high points of the film.

Based on the book The Informant (A True Story), by best-selling non-fiction author, Kurt Eichenwald. The book’s narrative contained many ironical and head-scratching situations, often cultivated by the central character, Whitarce.

Director Steven Soderbergh decided to develop these humorous undertones, and directed his screenwriter, Scott Burns, to situate the screenplay as a comedy. Burns proposed creating a narration for the film by voicing the lead characters’ stream of consciousness ramblings.

Corn Goes In One End and Profit Comes Out the Other

Mark Whitacre (Damon) is a biochemist, who worked his way up to vice president at the agricultural conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). ADM is manufacturing a new food additive, a corn by-product called lysine that can be found in virtually every supermarket product.

When a virus attacks the production of the food preservative, Whitarce is charged with remedying the profit-damaging catastrophe. Instead, he divulges a blackmail plot by one of their Japanese competitors. A Japanese business associate had phoned him to claim that a mole was planted at ADM to sabotage their output of lysine.

The top executives decide to call in the FBI to investigate the attack of corporate espionage against their company.

Special Agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) arrives at the Whitarce family home to place a wiretap on their phones. Before he leaves, with prodding from his wife (Melanie Lynskey), Mark reveals a multi-national price-fixing scheme of the new food additive by his company’s upper management team.

Whitarce agrees to wear a wire and record secret meetings between his company and other the global food industry players for the Bureau. As the case has grown in scope, Shephard is soon joined by another federal agent (Joel McHale) to manage the investigation.

During the course of Whitarce’s skillful uncover work; the Feds start to realize that something is a little off about the businessman. Nevertheless, the FBI duo is now totally absorbed in documenting the evidence collected by Whitarce.

From Wire-Tapping to Embezzlement

The FBI raids ADM and arrests of its most senior executives. With no one left at the top to run the company, Whitarce believes the board of directors will place him in charge. While this fuzzy logic perplexes the federal agents, they have yet to detect the charming Whitarce as mentally unbalanced.

His bipolar disorder comes to light, when the ADM’s lawyers uncover millions of dollars stolen from the company by Whitacre. The unraveling of his web of lies begins, much to the embarrassment of the unquestioning FBI investigators.

The Cast and Crew of Informant!

The Informant! stars Academy Award® winner Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting, the Bourne movies, Invictus), Scott Bakula (Life as a House, American Beauty, TV’s Quantum Leap and Star Trek: Enterprise), Joel McHale (E!'s Soup, NBC’s Community) and Melanie Lynskey (Heavenly Creatures, Flags of Our Fathers, Up in the Air).

Plus, joining the cast are comedians Tom Papa, Tom Wilson, Rick Overton, Tony Hale, Patton Oswalt, Paul F. Tompkins; with a special appearance from the Smothers Brothers (Tom and Dick Smothers).

Directed by Academy Award® winner Steven Soderbergh (Traffic). Screenplay written by Scott Z. Burns, based on the book The Informant ( A True Story), written by Kurt Eichenwald. Cinematography by Steven Soderbergh. Edited by Stephen Mirrione. Production design by Doug Meerdink. Costume design by Shoshana Rubin.

Music composed by multiple Oscar® winner and nominee Marvin Hamlisch (The Sting, The Way We Were).

Produced by Gregory Jacobs, Jennifer Fox, Michael Jaffe, Howard Braunstein and Kurt Eichenwald. Executive producers are George Clooney, Jeff Skoll and Michael London. U.S. release by Warner Bros. Pictures.

The copyright of the article Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! Film Review in Comic Films is owned by Denise Castillón. Permission to republish Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! Film Review in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.