- Corn. As Mark "Corky" Whitacre (Matt Damon) explains, it's part of every meal you eat. Orange juice, maple syrup, whatever. "Just read the side of the package," he says. Even jumbo shrimp eat it. But at Mark's company ADM, which incidentally is number 44 on the Fortune 500 list, all that matters is that "corn goes in one end and profit comes out the other." Lysine viruses? Fix them. Japanese extortion schemes? Pay them off. Just make sure that the company stays in the black. But when the FBI gets called in to tap his home phones as part of the extortion investigation, Mark suddenly gets very nervous. His wife (Melanie Lynskey) has been encouraging him to get something big off his chest, and this may be the right time to do it.
- As Mark confesses to FBI Agents Brian Shepard and Bob Herndon (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale), ADM has been engaging in illegal price fixing with Japanese and Korean competitors. Mark's prepared to become a corporate whistleblower, and, yes, he's even willing to wear a wire. Just call him secret agent 0014, since he's "twice as smart as 007." But why would Mark throw away his management-level position at ADM? Well, as with many aspects of this film, there's two answers for that. The first is that things are going on that Mark simply doesn't approve of. He wants to be the "white knight" for just once in his life, which would really be something for a guy whose parents died in a car accident when he was six. The second answer is that Mark honestly thinks "there'd still be a place for (him) at ADM when this whole thing was over." Maybe they'll even make him the next president of the company?
- By the way, how do polar bears know their noses are black? Is it, as Mark hypothesizes, "From looking at other polar bears? Do they see their reflections in the water and think, 'I'd be invisible if not for that.' That seems like a lot of thinking for a bear."
- As Mark's narration grows increasingly digressive and bipolar, it becomes difficult to evaluate how much of his story to believe. Was there really a Japanese extortionist? Well no, but that doesn't change the fact that ADM was fixing prices, right? "If there's anything else you want to add, now is the time," Agent Shepard offers. "What else is there?" Mark replies. After the FBI raid on ADM, things only get worse. In a few particularly painful revelations, we find out that Mark has been blabbing more to his former colleagues, the press, and ADM corporate lawyers than he has been to the FBI. He's like a kid who just can't keep a secret and, worse still, one whose secrets are usually full of something other than the truth. Also, hypothetically speaking of course, "what if it was standard practice at ADM for executives to regularly accept kickbacks in cash?" What if it Mark himself had embezzled millions of dollars in kickbacks while working with the FBI? Whoops!
- The Informant! is one of the more strangely amusing comedy-dramas I've seen in a long while. You remember the Saturday Night Live skit in which Jon Lovitz plays a pathological liar? Imagine him in Michael Mann's The Insider, and you get a sense of what it's like to watch this film. Yeah, maybe I'll be president of ADM someday...that's the ticket! Matt Damon's excellent performance is essential to selling a character who, for whatever reason, just can't help talking (and, more often than not, lying) to everyone he meets. The rest of the film's terrific cast is wonderfully understated, filled with talented character actors like Tony Hale, Clancy Brown, Thomas F. Wilson, Scott Adsit, Frank Welker, Patton Oswalt, and even the Smothers Brothers! So where are we left at the film's end? While Mark tells us that the government has collected over a billion dollars in price-fixing fines from companies like ADM, we never really pinpoint how much money ended up lining Mark's pockets. Sure, his wife has forgiven him, but then again "she likes avocados, and who wants that texture in their mouth?" Whatever you say, Mark.
- While several of Mark's narrations are hilarious, my favorite lines may be: Mark's Mother: "Mark's been telling people that you and I were killed in a car accident and he was adopted by rich people? What do you make of that?" Mark's Father: "Hmm...That's kind of weird."
