Last weekend I saw The Informant starring a chubby Matt Damon. It was good, but nothing like what I expected. When I bought my ticket, I was expecting to see a movie along the lines of one of the “Bourne” films. The Informant is about price fixing and corn, not international spies.(Link)
This confusion in expectations threw me. When I left the movie, I was underwhelmed. I said that the movie was good, but not what I expected. I was tempering my reaction, because I felt taken. If I had watched a preview, I would have known that the movie is based on a true story and tells the tale of Mark Whitacre (Damon), a bipolar executive at Archer Daniels Midland, who is forced into becoming a whistle blower on price fixing schemes performed by ADM and its competitors. The movie goes from there.
Reflecting on the movie, I liked it very much. The story is interesting and the dialogue is compelling. The audience is constantly hearing Whitacre’s grandiose, absurd, creative, self-indulgent thoughts, which provide most of the laughs during the couple hours of run time.
I recommend the movie to those who appreciate a creative adaptation of a real-life story. I liken the feel of this movie to Thank You For Smoking.