Film Review: The Informant!

The highest ranking executive ever to turn state’s evidence in a case of corporate fraud, Mark Whitacre once served as a biotech division president for Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), one of the largest food and ingredients companies in the world. Based on this true story, Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! opens with Whitacre (played by an overweight, typically boyish Matt Damon) pleasantly ensconced in a plush corporate lifestyle. He lives for his job as a biochemist turned executive, breathlessly describing the revolutions in corn technology to his politely disinterested wife and children whenever he finds the time to get out of the office. As Whitacre drives this captive audience through rural Illinois in one of his myriad high-priced cars, Soderbergh’s camera flips upside down to follow Whitacre and his corn-based ramblings. This shot turns out to be a telling symbol for the film as a whole: Mark Whitacre’s life is about to be turned on its head.
The first half of Whitacre’s story plays out like the typical tale of a corporate whistleblower. Encouraged by his wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey) to “do the right thing,” Whitacre reveals to FBI agents that his company is engaged at the highest level in international price fixing deals. Convinced to wear a wire, he then gathers hundreds of tapes of evidence that build the government’s case against ADM and bring indictments against many of his friends and coworkers. We get a few laughs at Whitacre’s expense, mostly due to the straight faced acting of Damon who maintains an earnest seriousness throughout his character’s semi-comic missteps and mistakes.
But if this were the whole film, Soderbergh would simply be rehashing territory he covered to wide acclaim in Erin Brockovich – Everyman David brings down corporate Goliath. Instead, the director slowly reveals that Whitacre is not the white knight he makes himself out to be. Whitacre lies to the FBI initially about a few small matters and his first betrayals of their trust we write off as mistakes of a man who has never dealt with the pressures of working undercover. However, these lies soon spiral out of control and we begin to realize that the lines between good and corrupt in his world are blurry at best. The audience learns of each deception with the same disbelief as the characters onscreen. Blindside after blindside hits us until we eventually realize that Whitacre has embezzled millions of dollars from his company at the same time as his work with the FBI to bring down the fraudulent price fixers.
Once the lies begin, Soderbergh keeps them coming as the movie’s fast pacing mirrors the snowballing of Whitacre’s life. The dark comedy is rampant here as Damon’s Whitacre assures the audience and the other characters that each lie is his last, that he’s finally come out with the full truth, only to reveal another more fantastic fabrication. Each time the embezzlement comes up, the amount stolen has grown. The audience can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all as what we first believe was a couple hundred thousand dollars balloons into over nine million in embezzled funds. We can laugh when Whitacre accuses his former friend and FBI handler of assaulting him with a briefcase, but the stark reality of a man grasping at the last straws of livelihood is never far from the surface.
Therein lies the appeal of this film, the double-edged sword of a man who does both the right and wrong thing. Subversive in his humor, Soderbergh breaks down the audience’s trust in Whitacre as a narrator. Like the lies, Whitacre’s interior monologues are humorous at first, but end up deeply sad, overlapping his spoken words as we see the man’s final breaking point. The movie, like its protagonist, is devilishly ambivalent. Is it humorous or tragic? Was Whitacre given a raw deal or did he get what he deserved? In the end, is he a good guy or a bad guy? Soderbergh never gives us the answer to these questions, instead leaving it up to the audience to decide for ourselves. Ultimately, the message seems to be that life is not as clear cut as the endings and answers we are accustomed to finding in the movies. This mentally challenging, psychologically dense tragicomedy signals the end of the summer blockbusters and ushers in the beginning of Oscar season. Hollywood kicks things off on the right foot with this gem from Soderbergh.

Three and a Half Stars / Four