The Informant! is a
2009 political dark
comedy film, directed by
Steven Soderbergh, and based on true
events and the 2000
nonfiction book about
Mark Whitacre,
The Informant, by journalist
Kurt Eichenwald. The script was
written by Scott Z. Burns and the film stars
Matt Damon,
Scott
Bakula,
Joel McHale and
Melanie Lynskey.'
mamma mia!
Plot summary
The
Informant! is about Mark Whitacre
(Damon), a rising star at Decatur, Illinois
based Archer
Daniels Midland (ADM) in the early 1990s who wound up blowing
the whistle on the company’s price-fixing tactics, only after his
wife forced him to. Matt Damon portrays the
bipolar whistleblower dubbed
"The wacky little
brother of Erin Brockovich". In
the film, Whitacre displays bizarre behavior including recklessness
and grandiosity.
One night
in early November 1992, the high-ranking ADM executive confessed to
FBI
agent Brian
Shepard (Bakula), present only to install a wire tap on Whitacre's
phone, that ADM executives—including Whitacre himself—had routinely
met with competitors to fix the price of lysine, an additive used in the commercial livestock
industry. As the highest-ranked executive to ever turn
whistleblower in US history, Whitacre secretly gathered hundreds of
hours of video and audio over several years to present to the FBI.
He
assisted in gathering evidence by clandestinely taping the
company’s activity in business meetings at various locations around
the globe such as Tokyo
, Paris
, Mexico City
, and Hong
Kong
, eventually collecting enough evidence of
collaboration and conspiracy to warrant a raid.
Whitacre’s good deed dovetails with his own major infractions and
struggle with
bipolar disorder. The
film focuses on Whitacre's meltdown resulting from the pressures of
wearing a wire and organizing surveillance for the FBI for three
years, instigated by Whitacre's reaction, in increasingly manic
overlays, to various trivial magazine articles he reads. In a
stunning turn of events immediately following the covert portion of
the case, headlines around the world reported that the
whistleblower defrauded $9 million from his own company at the same
period of time he was secretly working for the FBI and taping his
co-workers, while simultaneously hoping to be elected as CEO
following the arrest and conviction of the remaining upper
management members. After being confronted with evidence of his
fraud, Whitacre's claims in his defense begin to spiral out of
control, including an accusation of assault and battery against
Agent Shepard. Because of this major infraction and Whitacre’s
bizarre behavior, he was sentenced to a prison term three times
longer than the white-collar criminals he helped to nab. Agent
Herndon (Joel McHale) visits Whitacre while in prison in order to
support him for a presidential
pardon.
Cast
Production
In 2002, after completing
Ocean's
Eleven, Soderbergh announced his intent to adapt the book
The Informant by Kurt
Eichenwald, a former journalist for
The New York Times.
Scott Z. Burns
wrote the script based on the book.
Production
began in May 2008 in Decatur, Illinois. Filming was also done at the former Whitacre
mansion in Moweaqua,
Illinois
, a small town about 25 miles from Decatur, and at
Illini Country Club in Springfield, Illinois
. Some exterior shots were done in Mesa,
Arizona, in November 2008. The film was released on September 18,
2009. Damon gained 20-30 pounds for the role in order to look like
the doughy Whitacre.
Reception
Critical
The film received generally favorable reviews from critics.
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 75% of
critics gave positive reviews based on 122 reviews with an average
score of 6.8/10. Another review aggregator,
Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating
from reviews from mainstream critics, reported a score of 66 out of
100 based on 35 reviews. Film critic
Roger
Ebert awarded the film 4 stars out of 4 claiming "
The
Informant! is fascinating in the way it reveals two levels of
events, not always visible to each other or to the audience."
Box office
The film opened at #2 behind
Cloudy with a Chance of
Meatballs with $10,545,000. As of October 13, 2009 the
film had grossed $30,388,780 domestically and $32,478,930
worldwide. In the United Kingdom the film opened at #10 with only
£179,612 from the opening weekend. It was the third highest new
entry after
A Serious Man and
The Twilight Saga: New
Moon.
References
- [1]
- Box Office Mojo
- Digital Spy
External links
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