The Informant! - discussion guide

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Warning: This guide contains major plot spoilers

Summary

By the time we finish breakfast, most of us have eaten something made from corn, and not just if we've feasted on the humble corn flake. Corn-derivatives are in orange juice, cereals, syrups and most other parts of our culinary lives. Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) is very fond of corn. As the president of the BioProducts division of ADM - a giant in the corn industry - he was one of the biggest executives in the business. But he also uncovered an industry-wide price-fixing cartel, with ADM at the centre. Persuaded by his wife (Melanie Lynskey) to do the right thing, Whitacre tells the FBI all about ADM's fraudulent activities. That's when everything begins to unravel for Mark.

The FBI employs him as an informant, and provides him with equipment so he can record ADM's meetings with other international suppliers. Mark takes to his role enthusiastically, boasting to his gardener that he's 0014 because he's 'twice as smart as 007'. He's something of a liability to the FBI, narrating his recordings with unnecessary detail and barely concealing his recording equipment during the meetings. But it's not his proficiency at intelligence-gathering that gets him in trouble. Mark lies. He invents excuse after implausible excuse to get himself out of trouble. He behaves erratically, and accuses others of misleading him. All the while he's assisting the FBI with their investigation, he's hiding something big from them. When the lie gets out, Mark's story turns from intriguing to bizarre. A key witness in a case of corporate fraud turns defendant.

Background

The Informant! is directed by Steven Soderbergh (Erin Brockovich, Solaris and the Ocean's franchise), a versatile film-maker whose style brings much thoughtfulness and humour to Mark Whitacre's story. Whitacre is a real person and between 1992 and 1997 he did work as an informant for the FBI, uncovering price-fixing with ADM. This film takes its material from The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald, a non-fiction account of these years of Whitacre's life. There are two other prominent accounts, written by James Lieber and Dean Paisley. Though they differ on the extent of ADM's involvement in the embezzlement charges for which Whitacre was eventually convicted, they each argue that he should be considered a hero for uncovering such pervasive and pernicious corporate fraud, despite his own criminal convictions for embezzlement.

When the case against ADM and its partners was settled, the company was fined $100 million and three of its executives were sent to prison. Mark Whitacre was released in 2006, and is now COO of Cypress Systems, a bio-technology firm.

Questions for discussion

1. How did you react to the film?

2. What did you think of Mark Whitacre by the end of the film? How did your opinion of him change as the story unfolded?

3. What attitudes do ADM executives reveal when Mark explains the virus affecting lysine production?

4. Why is the FBI involved initially? What prompts Mark to reveal what he knows to them? Why does he agree to work with them when he has so much to lose?

5. How would you describe the way Mark undertakes his role as informant? Why does he refuse to co-operate with the FBI at first?

6. We frequently hear Mark's thoughts on subjects from polar bears to butterflies. These seem to bear little relation to events around him. What do these reveal about his character? What purpose do they serve in the film?

7. Why does the relationship between Mark and the FBI deteriorate? How would you explain Mark's behaviour at this stage?

8. Were you surprised when Mark's illegal activities were revealed? Why / why not?

9. How did you feel about Mark as the film revealed successive layers of lies?

10. What parts of the film's ending were you satisfied with? What left you dissatisfied?

11. What help could Mark have been given to cope with the pressure he was under? Should his sentence have been more lenient?

12. What are Mark's greatest needs? How does he go about trying to meet these? Why do his methods fail?

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