The Informant! is based on the real-life case of corporate whistleblower, Mark Whitacre, as told by award-winning investigative journalist, Kurt Eichenwald. Director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Trilogy, The Girlfriend Experience) has taken a story which was essentially a drama, and retold it as a comedy. With a fantastic script from Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum, An Inconvenient Truth) and the title role filled by long-time Soderbergh collaborator, Matt Damon (The Bourne Trilogy, Ocean’s Trilogy), the end result is a clever, funny and fascinating story of one man and his battle with truth.
You are probably better off going into this film, knowing as little as possible about the case involving Mark Whitacre and ADM (Archer Daniels Midland). Simply put, Whitacre is the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in American history for his role in the 1990s FBI case against the agri-business’ price fixing.
image In this version of events the filmmakers have chosen to focus on the character and intentions of Whitacre. Using his inner monologues to show him as a fantasist, who believes his life is like a Michael Crichton or John Grisham novel, and his outer platitudes to show the naïve optimist who thinks everything will turn out alright in the end. Damon is brilliant, portraying Whitacre as more than just the butt of the film’s jokes.
imageclick here to read my full review at Trespass
