Film Review: The Informant!

Posted by: – Sep 22, 2009

The Informant! is an enjoyable quirky comedy from Steven Soderbergh based on the real story of Mark Whitacre, who served as a corporate whistle-blower in the mid-90s. That is actually only the outer layer of the story. While Mark was working with the FBI as an insider at ADM, he was also embezzling money and taking kickbacks totaling over $9 million. This is not a thriller about corporate intrigue and FBI operations. It is a goofy comedy about how a seemingly normal man was able to get himself into deeper and deeper legal trouble, and then his many attempts to get back out again.

The film begins with Mark Whitacre enjoying a very stable life. He has a loving family, and he seems to excel at his job. Things begin to falter a bit, though, when a new project that Mark is in charge of at ADM fails and begins to cost the company $7 million a month. All the blame falls on Mark, as does all the responsibility to fix the problem. He is out of options when he suddenly receives a phone call from a Japanese competitor. Apparently they have planted someone at ADM, and this mole is sabotaging the operations. It will stop if ADM pays the competing company $10 million. Mark tells his bosses, who bring the FBI in to help with this apparent extortion case. After a private interview with FBI Agent Sheppard, Mark becomes concerned of what the FBI will discover in their investigations. On the prompting of his wife, Mark tells Agent Sheppard that ADM is involved in an international price-fixing scheme.

Mark’s decision to tell the FBI of the illegal practices of his company begins his double-life. Agent Sheppard convinces Mark to wear a wire to meetings and help them to build a case against ADM over three years. Mark agrees because he seems to legitimately believe that the board of directors at ADM will respect him for doing the right thing and make him the president of the company after the “bad guys” are arrested. No one can guarantee this though, so Mark also begins embezzling money in order to provide for his family should he become unemployed. Once official charges are made and investigations begin, all of Mark’s activities are discovered. ADM does not take kindly to losing $9 million, and the FBI is not pleased to find one of their informants is a criminal. Mark is faced with the impossible task of figuring a way out of his mess.

The comedy of this film comes from Mark’s apparent expertise at lying. He lies a lot. Then he lies to cover up those lies. When he is found out, he explains why he initially lied with still more lies. It is amazing that he was able to keep track of the fictional circumstances he always reported to each side of the investigation. Not even his wife or, eventually, his lawyers knew the whole truth. It is fun because we in the audience do not know either. The first half of the movie presents us with facts about Mark Whitacre. We find out about his life, his family, his job, his work for the FBI, and just about every little nuance that makes him who he is. The second half of the movie unravels every single thread. Mark is not the man we thought he was. There is an excellent scene that illustrates Mark’s degrading situation. He realizes he may be in trouble and begins presenting the FBI agents with hypothetical situations to see how serious the ramifications could be. He begins with petty nonsense that actually makes the agents laugh at him. Their attitude changes, though, as Mark’s scenarios become closer to the truth. The agents end up speechless, left with nothing to do but gawk at the man they thought they knew mere moments before.

It is unfortunate that The Informant! is being advertised as a dumb secret agent movie. This is not The Pink Panther or Get Smart. This film is far more intelligent. The comedy here does not come from a bungling central character, but rather a character who is so smart and capable that he tries to play too many angles and cannot keep from being found out. We laugh not only because we know that it could really happen, but because we know that it did really happen.

By Gareth Mussen