The Informant! (Cert. 15, 108 mins)
Stars: Matt Damon, Melanie Lynskey, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Patton Oswalt, Clancy Brown, Frank Welker, Eddie Jemison.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Rating: 3/5
IN THE early 1990s, family man Mark Whitacre decided to blow the whistle on a global price- fixing scam in the agricultural industry.
He was the highest-level executive in American history to turn against his employers.
By agreeing to wear a wire to various meetings, Whitacre provided the FBI with that essential link to the boardrooms of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), where all of the decisions were made behind closed doors.
As the case slowly but surely took shape, there was something the star witness was keeping from them. Great swathes of his testimony were the product of a fertile and overly-active imagination.
The Informant! is a fascinating and at times amusing true story about an everyman who pulled the wool over the eyes of some of the US government’s most highly-trained officers.
Matt Damon gained 30lbs and an unflattering moustache for the role, delivering a tour de force performance as a man lost in his own web of lies and deceit.
