The Informant! Is based on a real story about a guy who just wanted to do the right thing. The movie came out a little over 10 years ago but stands the test of time as the movie takes place in the early to mid 1990’s and is based on a true story. Matt Damon play’s the character perfectly but can’t really like all men pull off a mustache.
The movie is essentially about an argo-business doing some price fixing and the vice-president of the business turns informant to the FBI. The VP, Mark Whitacre played by Matt Damon is a compulsive liar a compulsive liar and well does end up getting the company taken down for price fixing but as Mark was money laundering also went to jail for that. He ended up getting nine years in prison where the other two gentleman involved only got three years. Whitacre, after being released from jail ended up becoming a COO of another company and would like to get a pardon for the crimes that has committed.
The irony is that they guys wanted to get the company taken down for the right reasons ends up making things worse for himself by lying about everything that he did. The fact that he was able to become COO of another company is beyond me but has to be doing something right to be able to accomplish that. It is certainly weird that this guy actually thinks that he would be getting a pardon for what he has done. I wonder what this guy is actually do now since the movie has come out. I hope that he isn’t doing the same thing at the new company that he is working for but the movie portrays that this guys will most likely never learn the true value of the lesson which he needs to learn. There is a line in the movie where he is saying that he has never slept better then when he is in jail and I think there is something wrong with it and I am hoping that isn’t true.
The movie definitely has a lot of actors in it that are main ‘B’ actors but really make the movie come together. A lot of theses actors are still in the business today and are making loads of money. some of these actors are Rick Overton, Craig Ricci Shaynak, Howie Johnson with the best one of them all being Joel McHale. Joel McHale has done a lot since this movie and other then Matt Damon maybe as arguably the best career coming from this movie.
The Informant! Is something else. There is a book about what really happened what the movie is based on. I do not plan to read the book but will watch the movie again. I will most likely watch the movie again in a few years when I have forgotten again what actually happened and it is like watching it for the first time! Would I recommend this movie to others? Yeah, for a throw back movie it isn’t to bad and Matt Damon usually picks really good projects to work on as well.