The Informant! (2009)
Tonight’s movie went into corporate crime, with The Informant! starring Matt Damon in Steven Soderbergh’s film. I must say that I enjoyed it.
Basically it’s a story about America’s top executive to turn whistleblower. He beings working with the FBI about the price fixing going on at ADM. He works with them for over 2 1/2 years getting video and recordings of meetings, but in the end it begins to also appear that he’s embezzling and he gets prosecuted as well.
What’s not to enjoy about this film — the happy-go-lucky bouncy music set against a backdrop of big corporate deals, white collar crimes, FBI agents, and possible jail time, and the while Mark Whitacre goes merrily along seemingly uncaring about the lies he’s telling or when or if they’ll catch up with him. It’s neat to see him just invent (I think) something new when he realizes he’s being discovered and how most of it then checks out, at least for a while. I say “I think” here because he’s so full of stories that you have a hard time really realizing which one of them, if any, are factual. He suffers from bipolar disorder, even as the forged letter from his would-be psychologist states in very specific terms. He must be a brilliant guy to keep all this straight for as long as he did, and that 2 million, no 5 million, or is it 7.5 million? I think it was 9 million, that he embezzled. Maybe it was 11…
Entertaining film! You don’t really learn anything and the drama isn’t really there, its just downright entertaining. So, have an enjoyable evening.
For me, the most sobering thing (aside from the white collar crime, don’t do that) is that in 1992 people with desk jobs were making $100K. When do I get a raise? I’m way underpaid! 
Also interesting is ADM’s statement about the movie you can see by clicking here.
Rated R. 108 minutes (1 hour 48 minutes). Why it’s rated R, I don’t know! There is some profanity. No blood, no nudity, no violence aside from the alleged hit in the head by a briefcase.
