At the Movies with Fatwayne

Liar, liar, pants on fire! That might be a more apropos title for this film! Matt Damon portrays Mark Whitacre who was a vice president of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in the 1990′s. Set in Decatur, Illinois, this film is based on a true story about the highest ranking employee to turn whistle blower exposing the largest price fixing scheme in U.S. history.

Mark Whitacre is a sick man suffering from a bipolar disorder but on the surface he appears to be just an ordinary but gifted and well educated man. The problem is that he can’t help but embellish as well as fabricate his stories as he relates to his company and the FBI. This puts everyone in rather embarrassing predicaments.

Mark’s company, ADM, is involved in a price fixing scam on a global basis to fix the price of lysine which is a food additive. Mark is not innocent of wrongdoing himself but decides to confide in the FBI. He is being handled by special agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) who, over the period of several years, has Mark running taps and wire conversations and video on the company’s illegal activities.

This is all working out good for Mark until things start to fall apart as his accounts of events become less and less convincing. He winds up betraying his co-workers, his attorney and the FBI and ultimately getting another attorney to represent him. All the time he was ratting on his company, he was also conducting his own scam and had defrauded  $9 million from ADM.

This movie is presented as a black comedy but to me, the only thing light was the musical score. Comedy was sorely lacking. It is a film that you must pay attention to or you might be left behind.

For quotes from this movie go to http://www.tvmoviequotes.com/theinformant.htm

Rated – R -

Fatwayne’s Rating -  -