Why would Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), a business executive making 350 thousand dollars a year, basically volunteer to become The Informant! on his own company, for the FBI? Would you?The Informant! is a true story about a very smart man named Mark Whitacre. With a PH D from Cornell, Mark was President of the BioProducts Division of Archer Daniels Midland, a fortune 500 company based out of Decatur, Illinois.
In the early 90's Mark begins to inform the FBI that ADM has been illegally price-fixing lysine. Over the next several years Mark wears wires and does anything he can to help the FBI build a case against ADM. However, without giving too much away, over these years Mark has been constantly lieing and even doing a little scheming of his own.
When it's all said and done Mark believes that he was doing the right thing the whole time and that he will be able to keep his job at ADM. I would describe this character as a delusional pathological liar, yet brilliant. A genius nut ball. A criminal. A sum bag trying to be noble.
It was a good movie and a very interesting story but there was nothing really special about it. A little funny but not laugh out loud. Matt Damon had a top notch performance playing the quirky Mark Whitacre, but I really ended up hating this character.
The Informant! is a film with a great performance from Matt Damon and great directing by Steven Soderbergh but that's not enough for me to say it was a great movie. I'm glad I saw it but I won't be adding The Informant! to my collection.
