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The Informant!

  • 2009
  • Tous publics
  • 1h 48m
IMDb RATING
6.5/10
69K
YOUR RATING
The Informant! (2009)
The U.S. government decides to go after an agri-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, company-man-turned-whistleblower Mark Whitacre (Damon).
Play trailer2:33
13 Videos
99+ Photos
Dark ComedyTrue CrimeBiographyComedyCrimeDrama

The U.S. government decides to go after an agro-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, vice president-turned-informant Mark Whi... Read allThe U.S. government decides to go after an agro-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, vice president-turned-informant Mark Whitacre.The U.S. government decides to go after an agro-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, vice president-turned-informant Mark Whitacre.

  • Director
    • Steven Soderbergh
  • Writers
    • Scott Z. Burns
    • Kurt Eichenwald
  • Stars
    • Matt Damon
    • Tony Hale
    • Patton Oswalt
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.5/10
    69K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Steven Soderbergh
    • Writers
      • Scott Z. Burns
      • Kurt Eichenwald
    • Stars
      • Matt Damon
      • Tony Hale
      • Patton Oswalt
    • 212User reviews
    • 253Critic reviews
    • 66Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win & 21 nominations total

    Videos13

    The Informant!
    Trailer 2:33
    The Informant!
    The Informant!
    Clip 1:15
    The Informant!
    The Informant!
    Clip 1:15
    The Informant!
    The Informant!
    Clip 1:04
    The Informant!
    The Informant!
    Clip 0:43
    The Informant!
    The Informant!
    Clip 1:08
    The Informant!
    The Informant!
    Clip 1:10
    The Informant!

    Photos114

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    Top cast99+

    Edit
    Matt Damon
    Matt Damon
    • Mark Whitacre
    Tony Hale
    Tony Hale
    • James Epstein
    Patton Oswalt
    Patton Oswalt
    • Ed Herbst
    Lucas McHugh Carroll
    Lucas McHugh Carroll
    • Alexander Whitacre
    • (as Lucas Carroll)
    Eddie Jemison
    Eddie Jemison
    • Kirk Schmidt
    Rusty Schwimmer
    Rusty Schwimmer
    • Liz Taylor
    Craig Ricci Shaynak
    Craig Ricci Shaynak
    • Discouraged Foreman
    Tom Papa
    Tom Papa
    • Mick Andreas
    Rick Overton
    Rick Overton
    • Terry Wilson
    Melanie Lynskey
    Melanie Lynskey
    • Ginger Whitacre
    Tom Wilson
    Tom Wilson
    • Mark Cheviron
    Scott Bakula
    Scott Bakula
    • FBI Special Agent Brian Shepard
    Scott Adsit
    Scott Adsit
    • Sid Hulse
    Ann Dowd
    Ann Dowd
    • FBI Special Agent Kate Medford
    Allan Havey
    Allan Havey
    • FBI Special Agent Dean Paisley
    Howie Johnson
    Howie Johnson
    • Rusty Williams
    Joel McHale
    Joel McHale
    • FBI Special Agent Bob Herndon
    Nick Craig
    • Kid at Pool #1
    • Director
      • Steven Soderbergh
    • Writers
      • Scott Z. Burns
      • Kurt Eichenwald
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews212

    6.569.1K
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    Featured reviews

    8kosmasp

    Subtle Da(e)mon

    I think this might be Damons best performance since the Good Will Hunting movie. At least it felt to me like that. And I'm not saying that to put movies like Bourne or Oceans down, they are a lot of fun (on different levels), but performance wise he didn't have to stretch that many "muscles" (action wise on the other hand, he obviously had to, at least with the Bourne Trilogy).

    The story is pretty simple and the anti "Hero" is quite ordinary. Which might make it less appealing to a large audience, but it wasn't aimed to crack the box office. Soderbergh captures a weird feeling in this movie, that leaves you with a weird taste at the end. Of course, you could argue, that the movie shows too little of Damons wife, maybe even too little of his employer. But as it is, it's a pretty solid and greatly edited work.

    Even the voice over, which seems and is completely out of place, works really good in this movie. I guess even the Team America members would change their opinion of "Matt Damon" after watching this one. Give it a try, but don't expect laugh out loud comedy (not the ordinary kind that is).
    5itamarscomix

    Disappointing

    Disappointing effort from Soderbergh, especially since, given the source material, it had a lot of potential. The story and script are solid - the plot twists and turns and often takes the viewer by surprise, and manages to slip in a statement about the incompetency of both government officials and business companies. And yet, it doesn't really hit a nerve, mainly because of hollow and dull directing. Damon does a decent job but his character - filled to the brim with quirks and personality traits - doesn't really have any actual personality, nor does any other character in the entire film. And stylistically it's a total mess. The title cards and goofy music are supposed to tell us that we're in a homage to 60's spy movies but mainly they just irritate, especially the terrible musical score that's plastered onto every scene in an effort to prove that, despite being everything but, The Informant is actually a comedy. It doesn't work. It's watchable but it's also a real waste, a good story fallen victim to poor storytelling.
    8tiabuena-742-259649

    Price Fixing...and other stuff

    This will be short. I read the book when it first came out in 2000, and recently watched the film, and now am rereading the book. The book is dry and difficult, with three and half pages of involved people listed at the very beginning. Who can keep track of all this? It is replete with the taped conversations of the involved, all of the everything that went on. And, it is tedious, if correct, in the extreme. Well, what the film did, and bless it, was to simplify all of this stuff and make it intelligible to us ordinary folks. And, it made a really nasty story somewhat funny, because we know within the first half hour or so that there is something hinky about this Whitacre character. Oh boy, is there, but I won't write a spoiler here. There's no reason to. Even in the book, the FBI guys were wondering about Whitacre. Why did he turn traitor to his own company? What did he have to gain? The film is extremely well done, an amazingly good adaptation of a book which would probably have you snoozing after fifteen minutes. Matt Damon really shows his stuff in this one, even developing a modest middle age belly to complete the image of the nerdy scientist.

    Watch it, laugh at it, and remember: this is a true story about why most of the people in America are poor and how their losses are paying for the riches of companies which have decided that "the customer is the enemy".
    tedg

    Trust, Lies and Videotapes

    I suppose I will always find something to like in a Soderbergh movie. The real joy is in never knowing just what that will be. Even in his most mainstream projects he is exploring some new skill. Here it is the notion of narration.

    I'll have to see this a second time with a DVD stop button to be able to fully catalog all the various modes that our filmmaker skips seamlessly through. The main device he weaves these modes around is the spine of the untrusted narrator. We have all sorts of layers and nodes of deception with the only ones we can really trust being the guys usually are the bottom of the garbage bin: the massive greedy company.

    We have this fellow being dishonest to everyone, including himself. We have no idea where the line is that he actually believes and we hear only from him. Some of the internal dialog is hypnotizing: we are lulled into accepting it because so much of it is appealingly funny. It is a great trick of misdirection, allowing us to associate with this slippery reality.

    Folded into this is are the watchers, nominally the FBI, then various lawyers and the wife, but us of course, punctuated by a video at the end directly to us (with the FBI behind a mirror).

    A second surprise awaited me beyond the Soderbergh stretching. Matt Damon finally does something impressive. He is truly something worth watching here. I never would have guessed. I never would have believed. In fact, this wouldn't have worked at all, this suspended belief within the story, if he had not so believably become the character.

    Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
    6squaremilenews

    Whistleblower Chokes On Pea

    Layers, more layers, it goes on and on when corporate informer Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) starts blabbing to the FBI about dodgy shenanigans at his mid-west corn-producing employers. Who do we believe? Where are the truths? Things are not a simple as they may initially seem. This is a quirky production, y'know the type, kinda colourful in a cartoon postcard kind of way with an optimistic voiceover from our main character. It is not one of those heavy, heavy expose's investigating the workings of huge corporations with tense court scenes and the like. No, the touch is certainly kept light and the subject-matter all the more interesting because it focuses in on the individual rather than the faceless corporate edifice. Not laugh-out-loud despite being described as a comedy, but reasonably entertaining and worth checking out.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      To prepare for the role of the overweight character Mark Whitacre, Matt Damon purposely gained weight prior to filming. He did this by eating lots of hamburgers, pizza, and dark beer, which he described in an interview as being "really, really, really fun."
    • Goofs
      The film takes place from 1992-1994, yet the cars have Illinois license plates that first appeared in 2001.
    • Quotes

      Mark Whitacre: When polar bears hunt, they crouch down by a hole in the ice and wait for a seal to pop up. They keep one paw over their nose so that they blend in, because they've got those black noses. They'd blend in perfectly if not for the nose. So the question is, how do they know their noses are black? 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.

    • Crazy credits
      Prologue: "While this motion picture is based on real events, certain incidents and characters are composites, and dialog has been dramatized. So there."
    • Connections
      Featured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: The Hurt Locker/My Sister's Keeper/Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
    • Soundtracks
      Trust Me
      Music by Marvin Hamlisch

      Lyrics by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman

      Produced and Performed by Steve Tyrell

      Steve Tyrell appears courtesy of E1 Music

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    FAQ

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    • Is "The Informant!" based on a book?
    • How closely does the movie follow the book?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 30, 2009 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official sites
      • Official site
      • Official site (Germany)
    • Languages
      • English
      • German
    • Also known as
      • El desinformante
    • Filming locations
      • Springfield, Illinois, USA
    • Production companies
      • Warner Bros.
      • Participant
      • Groundswell Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $22,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $33,316,821
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $10,464,314
      • Sep 20, 2009
    • Gross worldwide
      • $41,771,168
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 48 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
      • SDDS
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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