Deceitful Damon delves deep into delusion

Mark Whitacre was the highest-ranking executive to become an informant against his own company.

For his role as the agricultural businessman turned whistle-blower, Matt Damon gained 30 pounds, which is ironic considering the character he portrays carries twice that amount in emotional baggage.

Whitacre is a seemingly intelligent but perplexing individual. He has a beautiful wife, kids and a great job making six figures at ADM, a global Fortune 500 agri-business.

Why he decides to turn on his company while simultaneously trying to climb the corporate latter is an enigma that perhaps only mental illness can explain.  

Initially, Whitacre is involved in what appears to be a bribery scheme against his boss.
However, after he is urged by his wife (Melanie Lynsky) to report ADM’s involvement in price fixing scandals, Whitacre informs FBI agents Shepard (Scott Bakula) and Herndon (Joel McHale), who make him an unofficial informant.

Over the next several years, Whitacre wears a wire to collect tapes and evidence against ADM and its associates. The FBI agents seem unsure if Whitacre is the world’s greatest corporate crime fighter or simply a guy trying to have some fun in an otherwise mundane life.

Director Steven Soderbergh (“Ocean’s 11,” “Traffic”) cleverly leaks pertinent information piece by piece to the point where we don’t know if Mark Whitacre even knows which side he is on.

Damon, who has become adept at playing the duplicitous fraud, as he maliciously demonstrated in “The Departed,” is marvelous as Whitacre, whose lies become so incessant you get the feeling he actually believes his own fabrications.

Through his double dealing, Whitacre leads everyone – from the FBI to his superiors, business partners and countless lawyers – on a wild goose chase that lasts for years.
Whitacre aptly concludes, while standing in front of a judge in a packed courtroom, “Wow, what a ride.”

“The Informant!” is utterly hilarious, but given the seriousness of the real life events the film portrays, it is certainly not intended to be a comedy. Damon and Soderbergh brilliantly flush the humor out of every possible scene.

In an ironic twist, Mark Whitacre received a sentence triple that of the businessmen he helped to take down. The FBI later said if it were not for his own fraud conviction, Whitacre would have gone down as a national hero.